Review: Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa

Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa

This is the story of a girl, her gay best friend, and the boy in love with both of them.
Ten months after her recurring depression landed her in the hospital, Mira is starting over as a new student at Saint Francis Prep. She promised her parents she would at least try to act like a normal, functioning human this time around, not a girl who sometimes can’t get out of bed for days on end, who only feels awake when she’s with Sebby.
Jeremy is the painfully shy art nerd at Saint Francis who’s been in self-imposed isolation after an incident that ruined his last year of school. When he sees Sebby for the first time across the school lawn it’s as if he’s been expecting this blond, lanky boy with a mischievous glint in his eye.
Sebby, Mira’s gay best friend, is a boy who seems to carry sunlight around with him like a backlit halo. Even as life in his foster home starts to take its toll, Sebby and Mira together craft a world of magic rituals and secret road trips, designed to fix the broken parts of their lives.
As Jeremy finds himself drawn into Sebby and Mira’s world, he begins to understand the secrets that they hide in order to protect themselves, to keep each other safe from those who don’t understand their quest to live for the impossible.
A captivating and profound debut novel, "Fans of the Impossible Life" is a story about complicated love and the friendships that change you forever.

Publishes in US: September 8th 2015 by Balzer + Bray /  HarperTeen
Genre: ya contemp
Source: Harper Teen via Edelweiss
Disclaimer: I received this book as an ARC (advanced review copy). I am not paid for this review, and my opinions in this review are mine, and are not effected by the book being free
Series? no

This is a book with dark or sad themes. Kids that have made hard choices from hard backgrounds. Also mentions depresssion, suicide, gay/lesbian relationships, drugs, drinking, and alludes to oral sex. It is a young adult book, but if under 18, ask parent's guidance.

Buy it: IndieBound
 Amazon 
Powells
Barnes and Noble

Author stalk away: ~site ~twitter ~facebook ~blog

 

    I wanted to read Fans of the Impossible Life because the mention of recurring depression and the fact that she had been in the hospital for it. I am a sucker for a book about mental illness, and while it seems like she is on an upward or stable phase, I wanted to read about her. I deal with mental health issues myself, and its always been a struggle for me, I've gone through multiple labels and treatments, so awareness is something that I am all about. It also seems like a different sort of love triangle. 

   Mira and her depression was realistic. She had the spirals of negative thought that can lead to the feeling worse and not being able to get self out of it easily. She had the fatigue, the overbearing tiredness that sleep doesn't seem to fix. It takes over and colors everything. She tries hard and sometimes she breaks through these, but often there isn't much she can do. 

   Jeremy is shy and he has been a victim of a hate crime and that has colored his social life. He hardly talks at school except to Peter, who is a very popular teacher there. He breaks out of his shell a bit when he forms an art club. He sees that Mira is different and he likes that, he needs student signatures and Mira is one of the first he asks, and she shows up along with her best friend Sebby. 

   Sebby is a foster kid, very gay, and charismatic. He is attracted to Jeremy, but him and Mira can't figure out at first if he is gay or if he is attracted to Mira. But Jeremy seems to like spending time with the both of them. Sebby doesn't go to the same school as Jeremy and Mira, but he is there more than he is at his own school. 

   It was a story of friendship, of love, of kids with hard problems that there are no easy solutions to. Their relationship was complicated, Jeremy fell for Sebby. Sebby and Mira have a past with friendship but also more complicated history because they met at the hospital. Sebby and Mira were friends before they met Jeremy, but they included him right away. 

   There was also the cast of secondary characters that added another layer to the story. Jeremy's dads, the teacher Peter at school who was very involved in the lives of his students. There's Nick, who Sebby gets in trouble with. The flawed foster mom. Their other friends Rose, and Talia. 

   The climax and ending are both very realistic, and its not all hea. These are kids in hard situations, and though their friendship has brought them lots of strength, sometimes the things they are facing are bigger than sixteen year olds can handle. The epilogue is more hopeful and gives a sense of closure and that they have the possibilities of a future, that their friendship might be able to survive, though getting there will take work. 

Bottom Line: Gritty story about three teens, and their friendship that helps them through.

My question to you, my lovely readers:
Did you ever start a new school?