The novel delves into important subjects like depression and family and trust issue but because the humor is so on point, it doesn’t read as heavy.

Remember this when I describe the antics that follow, for though I am not a villain, I am not immune to villainy.” The good guys aren’t all good, the bad guys aren’t all bad, and any character wholly one or the other shouldn’t exist at all. “Every great character, Iz, be it on page or screen, is multidimensional. Her physical journey is as captivating as her emotional one is touching. Mim is prone to getting caught up inside her head but there’s also growth, juxtaposed with her quest to reach and save her mom. But Mim, like every 16-year-olds before her, is not exempt to Myopic Faultiness, “wearing near-sighted glasses in a far-sighted world.” And this is where the greatest triumph of Mosquitoland lies in. Her voice sounds natural, her odyssey equal parts heartrending and heartening. She’s erratic but not in any means tacky or supererogatory it’s organic. This is very clear from page 1, first sentence-which is saying something, heck, probably the somethingest of Somethings. Here’s the thing: I think there’s only one Mim in all of literature. So, in a bout of mutiny and daughterly affection, she accepts her mission as a “Mother-effing Mother-Saver” and runs away, equipped with wits, cynicism, war paint, a journal and eight hundred eighty dollars. She is resituated a thousand miles away from Mom and home and it doesn’t help that Dad wants her to take medication after an unclear psychiatric diagnosis. Mom and Dad divorced and now Stepmom is in the picture.

You would want to meet Mim and the caboodle of cast she befriends (or not) in this surprisingly funny, poignant and ultimately heartwarming multicolored road trip. 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.ĭebut author David Arnold tells a vibrant narrative in Mosquitoland.

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. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland. Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository | Fully BookedĪfter 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. Other classifications: Depression and Mental Illness, Road Trip, Young Adult Genre: Fiction- Coming of Age, Contemporary, Realistic Source: Gifted by my childhood best friend (thank you Treena!) Publication: March 3rd 2015 by Viking Books for Young Readers

Mosquitoland by david arnold