I bought this book when visiting the William Morris Red House where there was a little outbuilding full of donated books that you could buy for as little as 30p, the proceeds going towards the upkeep of the house.  This book caught my eye with the bright yellow cover with bold black font and upon picking it up and reading the back of it, I decided to purchase it to read on my journey home even though I had another book in my bag to read.

The blurb on the back reads

Darren hasn’t had an easy year. His parents divorced, his brother left for college, and his best friend moved state. Also, he still doesn’t have a girlfriend.

Then his dad shows up at 6am with a glazed chocolate donut and a pretty world-shaking revelation. In full freak-out mode, Darren ditches school and jumps on a bus to visit his brother, Nate, at college. But someone weird / amazing comes along for the ride.

Told entirely in lists, this hilarious novel perfectly captures why having anything to do with anyone is:

1. painful

2. unavoidable

3. ridiculously complicated

4. possibly, hopefully, the right thing after all.

The book is part of the Young Adult category and is a meaty 646 pages long, though it was an easy read as the book, instead of being broken up into chapters was set out in a series of lists which flowed together to tell the story of Darren, a 15 going on 16-year-old boy, his life and family.

The book was really interesting, not only as it was set out as a series of lists, but because I felt that it covered the sort of life a teenage boy would live, covering worries about himself, his family and developing relationships with girls.  The way Todd Hasak-Lowy writes, it makes you feel like you are part of the story and that you are experiencing everything in an intimate way.

I started reading this book on Monday 17th June on my w2ay home from London, then continued to read in my lunch break of half an hour in work through the rest of the week and had finished it by Friday, so, despite its size you can see that it was a really easy read.  The list set up meant that you could pick it up and put it down with ease.

You can buy this book over at Amazon.

Have you read this book or any others by Todd Hasak-Lowy?  What were your thoughts?  Id love to hear in the comments!