Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
For upper middle and high school students — not really for younger readers because there is some talk of sex and drugs. There is a same-sex crush, but it is sweet and appropriate and tries to complicate stereotypes.
This is a story about agoraphobia, friendship, love, family, trust, and deciding what you want to do with the rest of your life at 18. This story is really about a girl who takes advantage of a boy who is agoraphobic for the sake of a great college application essay.There is a love triangle here that, for me, adds interest to the plot, complicates the relationships among all the characters (including Solomon’s super supportive parents and grandmother).
I listened to the book, so there was a female narrator and a male narrator (both wonderful), which did not seem necessary because the book is not in first person; rather, the narrator shifts between Solomon’s psyche and Lisa’s.
As much as I did enjoy the characters and the storytelling, I just did not love the premise of Lisa needing to write a college application essay about a personal experience with mental illness to get a college scholarship and thus out of her small town when it seemed she had a lot of material with her mother and own perfectionism.
So I think many teens will like this (as I did), and I will have a copy or two in my middle school classroom library.