So, this is a YA/teen novel, written by Natalie Standiford. One of its bigger selling points is that it's LGBT fiction, or at least is very implied as such. Triggers for: death & thoughts of dying, disappearance, cheating, drugs & alcohol, abelism, and bullying. Its main characters are a boy and a girl who are in love, but the relationship they're in is asexual. Their relationship is seen in a variety of ways: described as familial, best friends, boyfriend/girlfriend are used once or twice, but neither of them feel as though it fits well. They never overtly are described as asexual. I actually got this book from my school's GSA group. In their office, they have a mini library and I saw this one in the fiction section. The title grabbed my attention, so I picked it up. The back made it sound interesting, if not a little cliche, but this book really broke my expectations. There will be mild spoilers in this post, and complete spoilers below a cut. You've been warned.
It starts out with our protagonist, Beatrice, describing her lifestyle and how she's going to have to move to a new school just for the beginning of the school year. She's not upset, as a self-described robot, though her mother coined the term. To be honest, the book isn't initially that exciting. She goes to the new school, her parents are acting weird, she sits between the cool girl and the weird boy - who's described as a ghost, and teased for it. The story is kind of like Mean Girls at this point, she gets taken in by the popular girl and her friends, the hot guy might be crushing on her. The ghost boy, Jonas, leaves her a note for a radio station to listen to (something she's into), and she starts becoming friends with him. The rest of the kids start to shun her when she hangs out with him, and they're self described freaks. One thing I liked about this was that they weren't praised for being ~different~ from all the other kids in their school. She still likes the other girls, and spends some time with them, occasionally partying with them. It's simply that she finds Jonas more interesting. There's a character who has a crush on her, its obvious to the reader but not to the characters, but he's very not pushy and sweet about it.
This would be boring, by my standards personally. The parent drama, the crushes at school, being friends with the weird guy. But Natalie spices it up by throwing in some weirder stuff. Jonas is a twin. His brother had been mentally handicapped, and their mother had devoted herself to caring for him. They died in a car crash when Jonas was 8. That's when he became weird and stopped spending time with other people. However, part way through the novel, Jonas finds out his father had lied to him, that his brother Matthew was still alive and was in an institution somewhere. Beatrice and him devote themselves to trying to find him, but they find it nearly impossible, and his father refuses to give him any information, because he believes they are better off without him being a burden on the family.
With all of this, there is a subplot of the radio show community - the show is based solely on callers and they have meet ups and parties of sorts throughout the novel. There is also the weirdness between Beatrice's parents, her mother is especially acting strange and has to begin therapy to try and regain control of her life. The other kids in school continue asking about Jonas and Beatrice's relationship status, but they find difficulty describing it, and Beatrice is pursued by two other boys, making Jonas jealous. School happens, they both do artwork of different types - Jonas draws mostly, while Beatrice does photography. They think about colleges and plans for next year. I'm going to talk about the rest of the book underneath the cut, but first my final thoughts.
I really liked this book. Would recommend to most people. If they are asexual, good representation, if not, it's still excellent that this book is portraying two teens having a platonic relationship without feeling a need to conform to societal roles. They're frequently questioned about the nature of their relationship, and at a few points Beatrice questions it herself. She mentions it to Jonas, blurting it out when he's acting jealous: "what's it matter to you, it's not like you're my boyfriend." They discuss it the next day, and decide that what they have isn't well described by boyfriend/girlfriend, but they're definitely more than friends. After that, it doesn't seem to bother her. A few times she says she loves him, but as I mentioned previously, it is described in different ways.
The plot at first seemed cliche and boring, I probably would have stuck with it, but wouldn't have recommended it to you. But the twist with Jonas' brother twists and twists and keeps on twisting. The book ends way differently than I ever could have imagined, and I really like it for the most part.. Part of me still wants a little more of a happy ending, but I think the way it ended did a good job of tying it up. There were lots of interesting characters, and good world building, it didn't feel incomplete or lacking, but it also wasn't too much to balance. It just felt like somewhat busy, that there were things happening pretty frequently, and that they were social people. Seriously, read this book. If you've read it, continue past the cut, if not - seriously, you should wait and read it. Readers feel free to start a discussion in the comments, or find me someplace else and talk to me!
So, spoilers abound. Turn back now, those who are unprepared.
I love their relationship. I don't know how to describe it. The's platonic, More than friendship. Sometimes they seem like best friends, but there's this depth to it that's really great. And that's really important to me, because I think the best relationships should be based in friendship, and I'm glad to see that represented in fiction. I love that she's still somewhat of friends with the other girls. There's no girl on girl hate. There's also one instance of a guy beginning to date another girl while at a party with Beatrice, but she doesn't get angry at the girl, she rightfully blames the guy and goes back to hang out with Jonas.
After they find out Matthew is alive, Jonas and Beatrice spend most of their time trying to find out where he is. They do, by chance, because Jonas gets a Christmas card from his brother and they look up the return address. They go there and manage to convince the attendants to let them see him, due to the fact that he is family. He sees his brother for the first time in 10 years, and his brother lights up and reacts well to his presence. They manage to go again, but the second time they go, Jonas gets upset by his treatment, and they get kicked out. His father gets notified, and the doctors and attendants are told that he's not to gain access again. He tries to sneak in, but gets caught. Jonas withdraws from Beatrice, saying he needs to plan a way to get Matthew out of there. They do a few things, still interacting, but he's a lot less active in her life.
They go to Ocean City on prom night, and get a plan together. Beatrice finds out that in their previous town, her mother had been cheating on her father and she's been acting strangely because she's no longer with her lover. Her parents split up temporarily. Their plan manages to get Jonas and Beatrice into the dayroom, but Matthew isn't there. Jonas gets agitated and starts asking, security pulls them out and the doctor in charge of the whole place comes to talk to them. She informs them that two weeks ago Matthew had died, he had choked on his food. He had been cremated according to his father's wishes, but his father hadn't picked up the ashes yet. Jonas retreats into grief. He gets angry with Beatrice and pushes her away. She keeps trying to reach out to him, but he doesn't let her. They graduate and she spends more time with the other kids from school because he won't spend time with her. He invites her to a memorial service for Matthew, just the two of them, and she gets excited, but he immediately shuts her out again.
She finally convinces him to go out with her, to one of the events from the radio show they listen to. He never shows up to pick her up, and she goes over to his house to see what happened. He left his car and everything, but completely disappeared. He cut out every image of his face anywhere past the age of 8. He was the photomanager for yearbook, so there are no pictures of him anywhere in that. He makes it so that he cannot be found. She's missing him, grieving, when he calls the radio show under a different name but one that she'll recognize. He tells her to go to a hiding spot he'd pointed out earlier, where he's left a note and the only remaining picture of his face. He says so that he can remember her, and she can remember him (they're from a photobooth, he took the top two pictures, and gave her the bottom two).
She begins a deeper friendship with the cute boy who's nice, the one I mentioned earlier, and he seems to have much more respect for Jonas than anybody else. They seem to be entering a platonic relationship, but it's very difficult to tell because the book ends before it goes into much detail. It does say that they go to school sort of near each other and visit on the weekends sometimes. She says about Jonas that he will never be found, and that he could be anybody. She says that maybe someday she'll get to the point where he won't matter to her as much, where she won't always scan every face for a glimpse of him.
I didn't like that he was gone forever, to be honest. I wanted a cliche happy ending. But I see the value in this. I think it's important that he's gone. I do wonder what happened to him. What a perfect book to write fanfiction for - a story of what happened to him. I don't like that Beatrice's parents got back together, or that she got with cute boy after. I mean, I like him, but it was always very obvious to me, and I think they would have been better just as friends. But their relationship wasn't explored, like I said, so that might have been all it was.
I liked this book so much, I'm considering looking up the author and finding other books she's written, to see if they're any good. If you have any recommendations for other books by this author, or other books you'd think I'd like based on this post, please let me know!
It starts out with our protagonist, Beatrice, describing her lifestyle and how she's going to have to move to a new school just for the beginning of the school year. She's not upset, as a self-described robot, though her mother coined the term. To be honest, the book isn't initially that exciting. She goes to the new school, her parents are acting weird, she sits between the cool girl and the weird boy - who's described as a ghost, and teased for it. The story is kind of like Mean Girls at this point, she gets taken in by the popular girl and her friends, the hot guy might be crushing on her. The ghost boy, Jonas, leaves her a note for a radio station to listen to (something she's into), and she starts becoming friends with him. The rest of the kids start to shun her when she hangs out with him, and they're self described freaks. One thing I liked about this was that they weren't praised for being ~different~ from all the other kids in their school. She still likes the other girls, and spends some time with them, occasionally partying with them. It's simply that she finds Jonas more interesting. There's a character who has a crush on her, its obvious to the reader but not to the characters, but he's very not pushy and sweet about it.
This would be boring, by my standards personally. The parent drama, the crushes at school, being friends with the weird guy. But Natalie spices it up by throwing in some weirder stuff. Jonas is a twin. His brother had been mentally handicapped, and their mother had devoted herself to caring for him. They died in a car crash when Jonas was 8. That's when he became weird and stopped spending time with other people. However, part way through the novel, Jonas finds out his father had lied to him, that his brother Matthew was still alive and was in an institution somewhere. Beatrice and him devote themselves to trying to find him, but they find it nearly impossible, and his father refuses to give him any information, because he believes they are better off without him being a burden on the family.
With all of this, there is a subplot of the radio show community - the show is based solely on callers and they have meet ups and parties of sorts throughout the novel. There is also the weirdness between Beatrice's parents, her mother is especially acting strange and has to begin therapy to try and regain control of her life. The other kids in school continue asking about Jonas and Beatrice's relationship status, but they find difficulty describing it, and Beatrice is pursued by two other boys, making Jonas jealous. School happens, they both do artwork of different types - Jonas draws mostly, while Beatrice does photography. They think about colleges and plans for next year. I'm going to talk about the rest of the book underneath the cut, but first my final thoughts.
I really liked this book. Would recommend to most people. If they are asexual, good representation, if not, it's still excellent that this book is portraying two teens having a platonic relationship without feeling a need to conform to societal roles. They're frequently questioned about the nature of their relationship, and at a few points Beatrice questions it herself. She mentions it to Jonas, blurting it out when he's acting jealous: "what's it matter to you, it's not like you're my boyfriend." They discuss it the next day, and decide that what they have isn't well described by boyfriend/girlfriend, but they're definitely more than friends. After that, it doesn't seem to bother her. A few times she says she loves him, but as I mentioned previously, it is described in different ways.
The plot at first seemed cliche and boring, I probably would have stuck with it, but wouldn't have recommended it to you. But the twist with Jonas' brother twists and twists and keeps on twisting. The book ends way differently than I ever could have imagined, and I really like it for the most part.. Part of me still wants a little more of a happy ending, but I think the way it ended did a good job of tying it up. There were lots of interesting characters, and good world building, it didn't feel incomplete or lacking, but it also wasn't too much to balance. It just felt like somewhat busy, that there were things happening pretty frequently, and that they were social people. Seriously, read this book. If you've read it, continue past the cut, if not - seriously, you should wait and read it. Readers feel free to start a discussion in the comments, or find me someplace else and talk to me!
So, spoilers abound. Turn back now, those who are unprepared.
I love their relationship. I don't know how to describe it. The's platonic, More than friendship. Sometimes they seem like best friends, but there's this depth to it that's really great. And that's really important to me, because I think the best relationships should be based in friendship, and I'm glad to see that represented in fiction. I love that she's still somewhat of friends with the other girls. There's no girl on girl hate. There's also one instance of a guy beginning to date another girl while at a party with Beatrice, but she doesn't get angry at the girl, she rightfully blames the guy and goes back to hang out with Jonas.
After they find out Matthew is alive, Jonas and Beatrice spend most of their time trying to find out where he is. They do, by chance, because Jonas gets a Christmas card from his brother and they look up the return address. They go there and manage to convince the attendants to let them see him, due to the fact that he is family. He sees his brother for the first time in 10 years, and his brother lights up and reacts well to his presence. They manage to go again, but the second time they go, Jonas gets upset by his treatment, and they get kicked out. His father gets notified, and the doctors and attendants are told that he's not to gain access again. He tries to sneak in, but gets caught. Jonas withdraws from Beatrice, saying he needs to plan a way to get Matthew out of there. They do a few things, still interacting, but he's a lot less active in her life.
They go to Ocean City on prom night, and get a plan together. Beatrice finds out that in their previous town, her mother had been cheating on her father and she's been acting strangely because she's no longer with her lover. Her parents split up temporarily. Their plan manages to get Jonas and Beatrice into the dayroom, but Matthew isn't there. Jonas gets agitated and starts asking, security pulls them out and the doctor in charge of the whole place comes to talk to them. She informs them that two weeks ago Matthew had died, he had choked on his food. He had been cremated according to his father's wishes, but his father hadn't picked up the ashes yet. Jonas retreats into grief. He gets angry with Beatrice and pushes her away. She keeps trying to reach out to him, but he doesn't let her. They graduate and she spends more time with the other kids from school because he won't spend time with her. He invites her to a memorial service for Matthew, just the two of them, and she gets excited, but he immediately shuts her out again.
She finally convinces him to go out with her, to one of the events from the radio show they listen to. He never shows up to pick her up, and she goes over to his house to see what happened. He left his car and everything, but completely disappeared. He cut out every image of his face anywhere past the age of 8. He was the photomanager for yearbook, so there are no pictures of him anywhere in that. He makes it so that he cannot be found. She's missing him, grieving, when he calls the radio show under a different name but one that she'll recognize. He tells her to go to a hiding spot he'd pointed out earlier, where he's left a note and the only remaining picture of his face. He says so that he can remember her, and she can remember him (they're from a photobooth, he took the top two pictures, and gave her the bottom two).
She begins a deeper friendship with the cute boy who's nice, the one I mentioned earlier, and he seems to have much more respect for Jonas than anybody else. They seem to be entering a platonic relationship, but it's very difficult to tell because the book ends before it goes into much detail. It does say that they go to school sort of near each other and visit on the weekends sometimes. She says about Jonas that he will never be found, and that he could be anybody. She says that maybe someday she'll get to the point where he won't matter to her as much, where she won't always scan every face for a glimpse of him.
I didn't like that he was gone forever, to be honest. I wanted a cliche happy ending. But I see the value in this. I think it's important that he's gone. I do wonder what happened to him. What a perfect book to write fanfiction for - a story of what happened to him. I don't like that Beatrice's parents got back together, or that she got with cute boy after. I mean, I like him, but it was always very obvious to me, and I think they would have been better just as friends. But their relationship wasn't explored, like I said, so that might have been all it was.
I liked this book so much, I'm considering looking up the author and finding other books she's written, to see if they're any good. If you have any recommendations for other books by this author, or other books you'd think I'd like based on this post, please let me know!
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