Review: Mosquitoland by David Arnold

Release Date: March 3, 2015

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
Pages: 352
Source: ARC from ALA Midwinter

ISBN-10: 045147077X

Rating: 5 Stars

Book Description

"I am a collection of oddities, a circus of neurons and electrons: my heart is the ringmaster, my soul is the trapeze artist, and the world is my audience. It sounds strange because it is, and it is, because I am strange."
After the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in northern Ohio to the "wastelands" of Mississippi, where she lives in a medicated milieu with her dad and new stepmom. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland.
So she ditches her new life and hops aboard a northbound Greyhound bus to her real home and her real mother, meeting a quirky cast of fellow travelers along the way. But when her thousand-mile journey takes a few turns she could never see coming, Mim must confront her own demons, redefining her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane.
Told in an unforgettable, kaleidoscopic voice, "Mosquitoland" is a modern American odyssey, as hilarious as it is heartbreaking."

Review

Short and Sweet:

Confession: immediately upon completing Mosquitoland, I hugged it and cried tears of joy awhile. Then I sent my friend Sara a text full of gushy book love, complete with profanity for emphasis of said book love. You know that friend you have that is weird in the same way that you are weird? This book is like that... so is Sara. ;)

To Elaborate...

Mosquitoland is as much a journey for the reader as it is for Mim, the deliciously offbeat heroine of this tale. Mim is on a runaway mission to see her sick mom in Cleveland. She's pissed at her dad and stepmom and she's working through everything that has happened with the 'help' of medication. Mim has always been quirky, but after her parents' divorce and then moving across the country, her grief has terrified her father and he's convinced she needs a little 'medical' help to move forward. However, when she gets called to the principal's office one day during school and overhears that her mom is ill, Mim decides to take matters into her own hands and catches a bus.

Right away, things get weird. From an older creepy dude's interest in her at the bus station to the sweet, surprisingly insightful and interesting old lady who sits next to her, Mim encounters all sorts of people. In the thousand miles that she travels, she makes friends, loses some and falls in love. She processes her feelings and relates her recent history in letters to someone mysterious and questions the necessity and helpfulness of the pills she's been swallowing to cope. Along the way, Mim learns to trust herself, her intuition and even the one person she least expects to. A beautiful story with a stunning conclusion worth every mile that it takes to get there.

Mosquitoland is smart, hilarious, sweet and more than a little weird. It is an instant new favorite of mine. I will absolutely be recommending this book to everyone I know including you! This story is a 2015 must-read!

5 sappy, extra big hearts!