Perma-Bound Edition ©2015 | -- |
Paperback ©2016 | -- |
Voyages and travels. Fiction.
Runaways. Fiction.
Mothers and daughters. Fiction.
Mental illness. Fiction.
Stepfamilies. Fiction.
Starred Review As she so often claims, "I am Mary Iris Malone and I am not okay." For most of her 16 years, Mim has believed this to be the truth. But after her father and new stepmom conspire to keep her away from her mother, who is struggling to get well in Cleveland, Mim sets out on an odyssey from Mississippi. Arnold populates his debut novel with memorable, inventive characters who keep Mim company and keep the reader invested as the miles count down, such as her unlikely kinship with street kid Walt and the devastatingly handsome Beckett Van Buren. Meanwhile, the twists of Mim's story involving her immediate family are fleshed out through letters she writes in her journal. Arnold boldly tackles mental illness and despair, and sexual assault and sexual identity, without ever once losing the bigheartedness of the story. Arnold gives Mim a worldview that is open and quirky-morphing-into-kitschy, and though some events come off as overly convenient, the honesty always resonates. As Mim reaches Cleveland, and Walt and Beck follow the road to their own destinations, Arnold never lets up on the accelerator of life's hard lessons. In the words of one of Mim's Greyhound seatmates, this has pizzazz ts and lots of it.
Horn BookSixteen-year-old Mim hops a Greyhound to reunite with her sick mom in Cleveland. Flashbacks and letters interspersed into Mim's first-person account of her wacky road trip gradually reveal the truth about her mother's illness, Dad and brand-new stepmom Kathy's disturbing "BREAKING NEWS," and Mim's doubts about her own mental health. Mim's voice is a bit over-the-top quirky at times, but singular and full of heart.
School Library JournalGr 7 Up-Mary Iris Malone, aka Mim, has moved from Cleveland to Mississippi (or Mosquitoland as Mim derisively calls it) with her father and new stepmother, who want her to forget her old life and even her mother. Mim is already struggling, but when she becomes convinced that her stepmother is keeping them apart, the teen steals money and hits the road to Cleveland to save her mother. The journey has bumps along the wayfrom a bus crash to unsavory characters. There are allies too, including romantic lead Beck and Walt, a homeless young man with Down syndrome. Mim grows on the trip and is forced to confront hard truths. Debut author Arnold's book is filled with some incredible moments of insight. The protagonist is a hard-edged narrator with a distinct voice. There is a lot for teens to admire and even savor-but there are also some deeply problematic elements. There's cultural appropriation: Mim uses lipstick to paint her face to soothe herself, calling it "war paint" and assuring readers that this is fine because she's "part" Cherokee. Walt's characterization veers close to stock, being only an inspiration for Mim. She and Beck have to take Walt to a veterinarian during a medical emergency. They joke that he is "kind of our pet." The revelations about Mim's mother's mental health, and her own mental health, arrive without clear foreshadowing and feel somewhat disjointedparticularly Mim's ultimate decision about her own medication. Recommended for larger collections, this is a readable, original story with strong writing, but the issues cannot be ignored. Angie Manfredi, Los Alamos County Library System, NM
Starred Review ALA Booklist
Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Horn Book
Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)
School Library Journal
Wilson's High School Catalog
(947 miles to go)
1. A Thing's Not a Thing Until You Say It Out Loud
I am Mary Iris Malone, and I am not okay.
2. The Uncomfortable Nearness of Strangers
September 1--afternoon
Dear Isabel,
As a member of the family, you have a right to know what's going on. Dad agrees but says I should avoid "topics of substance and despair." When I asked how he propose I do this, seeing as our family is prone to substantial desperation, he rolled his eyes and flared his nostrils, like he does. The thing is, I'm incapable of fluff, so here goes. The straight dope, Mim-style. Filled to the brim with "topics of substance and despair."
Just over a month ago, I moved from the greener pastures of Ashland, Ohio, to the dried-up wastelands of Jackson, Mississippi, with Dad and Kathy. During that time, it's possible I've gotten into some trouble at my new school. Not trouble with a capital T, you understand, but this is a subtle distinction for adults once they're determined to ruin a kid's youth. My new principal is just such a man. He scheduled a conference for ten a.m. this morning, in which the malfeasance of Mim Malone would be the only point of order. Kathy switched her day shift at Denny's so she could join Dad as a parental representative. I was in algebra II, watching Mr. Harrow carry on a romantic relationship with his polynomials, when my name echoed down the coral-painted hallways.
"Mim Malone, please report to Principal Schwartz's office. Mim Malone to the principal's office."
(Suffice it to say, I didn't want to go, but the Loudspeaker summoned, and the Student responded, and 'twas always thus.)
The foyer leading into the principal's office was dank, a suffocating decor of rusty maroons and browns. Inspirational posters were plastered around the room, boasting one-word encouragements and eagles soaring over purple mountains' majesty.
I threw up a little, swallowed it back down.
"You can go on back," said a secretary without looking up. "They're expecting you."
Beyond the secretary's desk, Principal Schwartz's heavy oak door was cracked open an inch. Nearing it, I heard low voices on the other side.
"What's her mother's name again?" asked Schwartz, his timbre muffled by that lustrous seventies mustache, a holdover from the glory days no doubt.
"Eve," said Dad.
Schwartz: "Right, right. What a shame. Well, I hope Mim is grateful for your involvement, Kathy. Heaven knows she needs a mother figure right now."
Kathy: "We all just want Eve to get better, you know? And she will. She'll beat this disease. Eve's a fighter."
Just outside the door, I stood frozen--inside and out.
Disease?
Schwartz: (Sigh.) "Does Mim know?"
Dad: (Different kind of sigh.) "No. The time just doesn't seem right. New school, new friends, lots of . . . new developments, as you can see."
Schwartz: (Chuckle.) "Quite. Well, hopefully things will come together for Eve in . . . where did you say she was?"
Dad: "Cleveland. And thank you. We're hoping for the best."
(Every great character, Iz, be it on page or screen, is multidimensional. 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. Remember this when I describe the antics that follow, for though I am not a villain, I am not immune to villainy.)
Our Heroine turns from the oak door, calmly exits the office, the school, the grounds. She walks in a daze, trying to put the pieces together. Across the football field, athletic meatheads sneer, but she hears them not. Her trusty Goodwill shoes carry her down the crumbling sidewalk while she considers the three-week drought of letters and phone calls from her mother. Our Heroine takes the shortcut behind the Taco Hole, ignoring its beefy bouquet. She walks the lonely streets of her new neighborhood, rounds the skyscraping oak, and pauses for a moment in the shade of her new residence. She checks the mailbox--empty. As always. Pulling out her phone, she dials her mother's number for the hundredth time, hears the same robotic lady for the hundredth time, is disheartened for the hundredth time.
We're sorry, this number has been disconnected.
She shuts her phone and looks up at this new house, a house bought for the low, low price of Everything She'd Ever Known to Be True. "Glass and concrete and stone," she whispers, the chorus of one of her favorite songs. She smiles, pulls her hair back into a ponytail, and finishes the lyric. "It is just a house, not a home."
Bursting through the front door, Our Heroine takes the steps three at a time. She ignores the new-house smell--a strange combination of sanitizer, tacos, and pigheaded denial--and sprints to her bedroom. Here, she repacks her trusty JanSport backpack with overnight provisions, a bottle of water, toiletries, extra clothes, meds, war paint, makeup remover, and a bag of potato chips. She dashes into her father and stepmother's bedroom and drops to her knees in front of the feminine dresser. Our Heroine reaches behind a neatly folded stack of Spanx in the bottom drawer and retrieves a coffee can labeled HILLS BROS. ORIGINAL BLEND. Popping the cap, she removes a thick wad of bills and counts by Andrew Jacksons to eight hundred eighty dollars. (Her evil stepmother had overestimated the secrecy of this hiding spot, for Our Heroine sees all.)
Adding the can of cash to her backpack, she bolts from her house-not-a-home, jogs a half-mile to the bus stop, and catches a metro line to the Jackson Greyhound terminal. She'd known the where for a while now: Cleveland, Ohio, 947 miles away. But until today, she wasn't sure of the how or when.
The how: a bus. The when: pronto, posthaste, lickety-split. And . . . scene. But you're a true Malone, and as such, this won't be enough. You'll need more than just wheres, whens, and hows--you'll need whys. You'll think Why wouldn't Our Heroine just (insert brilliant solution here)? The truth is, reasons are hard. I'm standing on a whole stack of them right now, with barely a notion of how I got up here.
So maybe that's what this will be, Iz: my Book of Reasons. I'll explain the whys behind my whats, and you can see for yourself how my Reasons stack up. Consider that little clan- destine convo between Dad, Kathy, and Schwartz Reason #1. It's a long way to Cleveland, so I'll try and space the rest out, but for now, know this: my Reasons may be hard, but my Objectives are quite simple.
Get to Cleveland, get to Mom.
I salute myself.
I accept my mission.
Signing off,
Mary Iris Malone,
Mother-effing Mother-Saver
Excerpted from Mosquitoland by David Arnold
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
“Top-notch” —USA Today
“Illuminating” —Washington Post
“A breath of fresh air” —Entertainment Weekly
“Memorable” —People
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.
*Includes a discussion guide, exclusive author interview, and music lyrics written by David Arnold