Invincible

Reviewed by: Kara Reiman - Walker Memorial Library, Westbrook, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: December 8, 2015

Review

A book about teens dealing with cancer, this book delves deeper into the dark side of death and illness. Evie lives in a hospital ward surrounded by doctors, nurses, counselors, and other kids with cancer. While her family, friend, and boyfriend still come to visit her, she feels most connected with her two best friends in the ward. Evie knows she is going to die, right up until the day she miraculously recovers. It's after going home that her life truly starts to unravel. She can’t deal with her old life or the death of one of her friends. The jacket description of this book makes it out to be about how she is miraculously alive and then meets a cute, troubled boy who makes everything better, and that relationship is the focus of the story. But Evie doesn't even meet him until more than halfway through the book. The book is more about Evie herself and her struggle to accept death, and then to accept life again, and her fight to figure out who she really is. While this story feels authentic and deals with real issues, teens who pick up this book based on the jacket description will be sorely disappointed. You also find out at the very end that it's going to be a series, which feels completely unnecessary.

Overall Book Score: good