REVIEW: Noggin

NOGGIN by John Corey Whaley

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction
Publication date: April 8th, 2014
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 340
Source: Bought

SYNOPSIS 

Listen — Travis Coates was alive once and then he wasn’t.

Now he’s alive again.

Simple as that.

The in between part is still a little fuzzy, but he can tell you that, at some point or another, his head got chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado. Five years later, it was reattached to some other guy’s body, and well, here he is. Despite all logic, he’s still 16 and everything and everyone around him has changed. That includes his bedroom, his parents, his best friend, and his girlfriend. Or maybe she’s not his girlfriend anymore? That’s a bit fuzzy too.

Looks like if the new Travis and the old Travis are ever going to find a way to exist together, then there are going to be a few more scars.

Oh well, you only live twice. 

THOUGHTS

With a premise as unique as this one, it is hard not to be curious - especially because it only prepares you for the first few pages. To be quite honest, I had no idea what to expect when I started reading. I understood the fact that the main character, Travis, has been given a chance to live again, but it still gives the author many options of where to take the story. This could be a very science-driven story, seeing as it is classified as science fiction, but it reads as a contemporary. It's almost like a glimpse of what would happen after a character dies, except he comes back to life five years later and no one knows exactly how to handle it. 

Although the main character can be quite frustrating at times, it is hard to blame him. He was frozen at sixteen and he wakes up as a teenager still, but he is forced to deal with the effect five years has had on the people around him. He is placed in a difficult position, torn from acting his "age" and acting like an adult just to fit in with the friends he had in his previous life. This opens the door to the recurring theme of pretending, which the characters do a lot of in this book. Travis manages to notice this flaw in the people around him, but it is hard for him to admit that he is just like them. 

Dealing with growing up and being left behind by those you used to call your friends is something the main character has a hard time doing and it is quite interesting to see how he starts embracing his new life. His decisions can be quite brash, but he is sixteen and even if time has passed for the people around him, he is stuck in the past. The problems in this book are all very typical of contemporary novels, but with a twist. Still, there are times in which I almost forgot that his head had been frozen for several years and that it had been attached to a body that it is not his own. 

If you're looking for a contemporary with fun characters, but want it to be slightly different from the rest, then this is the right book for you. If you're more interested in how exactly does the character's body work and the more scientific aspects the synopsis mentions, then you might be disappointed with this one. Overall, it was an interesting read, but I felt like it was missing something to make it a bit more memorable because I honestly expected something else. I strongly suggest than you read this book thinking it is a contemporary because I made the mistake of thinking it would revolve a little less on real problems. 

RATING