5/5 Stars.
This book was one of the most amazing reads I’ve read this year. The whole book is full of life, each character has its own world full of situations that are presented in the real one, in each one of our lives, and it’s so good to see yourself in each one of these characters. It’s hard to find a book where you can find a part of yourself in each one of them, but in this book, it was like so easy to identify with them.
Chris Colfer is an amazing author, and this book is written in the third person. It tells the story about four friends that are going on a road trip as a goodbye trip before they go to college, and as a joke, they invite one of their idols, from a tv show they all love, to join them on the trip. Big surprise happens when Cash Carter, tv star from the famous tv show “Wiz Kids,” decides to join them on their trip, and it will forever change their life.
Cash Carter is the superstar of the friend’s favorite show, they met because of this show, and now they are best friends because of it as well. However, when he joins the group of teenagers, they get the shock of their life when they realize he’s nothing like he is on tv. I mean, of course, they knew he was a character from tv, but the way he acted throughout the whole journey was so different from what they thought that it change their lives. He’s an interesting character fed up with all the “fame” and fortune of being an actor of a big show. He says that there are certain expectations with being an actor that people want him to follow, and he has for most of his life; however, he’s fed up with it, and decides to join four strangers in this random adventure.
I love that Chris gives us a famous person point of view. We get to see how Cash is tired of people every time they meet him, they don’t want to meet Cash Carter, they want to me the character that he plays on the show, and that bothers him a lot. Sometimes we don’t realize that famous people get tired of being behind the camera, and easy for us to judge because well they have everything we don’t, but if you are an actor who;s has grown up behind the lens of a camera, you get tired of it and, well, I imagine that this is how Daniel Radcliffe must’ve felt growing up with Harry Potter, he had gotten tired at some point, and the only thing we did was judge him because of it. I do love this perspective on the book, it most certainly changes our views on that industry.Topher—the random guy that’s super tall but is not because he plays basketball. He was the mastermind behind the trip and their driving in his mom station wagon. He has a disabled brother, and well that impeding him from going to the school he wants to go, and he decides to stay to help his mom with his brother. I’m mentioning this because it’s a very important factor towards the development of the book, in his life. Oh, and he also has a crush on Sam.that bothers him a lot.
Next, there’s Sam—you see there’s something about her, and I don’t want to give anything away because her secret we don’t see it coming until she tells us what it is. Chris Colfer manages to implement real life situations to these characters, and well, Sam’s secret, is a situation that we see happening every day in our lives, and that many teens deal with what Sam is going through, and that before the YA books didn’t use to talk about. I love the way the author portrayed Sam, and there was a scene in this book where Sam and Cash are on top of a roof, and the way Sam explains her situation to Cash to me is just so amazing, and I wish that teens and people from around the world realized this too. Sam even though she’s afraid, she’s super strong, she’s full of fear, and she keeps going. So, to all the teens that are going through her situation, please understand that you are not alone and that there’s always someone out there who understands you.
Joey is the son of a pastor, a very well respected pastor, loved and adored by their community, and well, his father condemns everybody that doesn’t follow the rules of God. Joey has a secret that is not is as bad, but in his circumstances, he faces challenges because of it. He’s afraid of what his family might think, and he’s afraid that his friends won’t accept him. This, again, is a situation that we see happening a lot in the YA community, and thank God more authors are talking about on the books. Chris doesn’t sugar coat it, and that’s one of the things that I loved about this book, how real it is. Not everything in this book is all fun and games, and things don’t end up well for all of them, but yet somehow they managed to find each other and stick through their friendship despites the secrets and lies, and that’s what every squad should be about.
Mo is a really interesting character. Her secret is not as big the other ones but is a secret nonetheless, and once again, it has to do with a parent perspective. Her father wants Mo going to a school she doesn’t want to go, and she’s faced with the challenge of refusing him, and he refusing to pay for education, or accepting his decision and being miserable for the rest of her life. There’s a scene in this book where she and Cash are in a car together driving like crazy, and Mo tells Cash that she never wanted to go to that school, the only reason she’s doing it, is because her father wants her to, and Cash is like “you can’t live your life the way other are expecting, you are supposed to live your life the way you want,” he didn’t say those exact same words, but it was something similar. And well, that scene stocked to me and made me realized that not everyone is going to be happy on how you go in life, things will be different, but you got to make sure that is the way you want it to go, not to please others.
In the end, we get to see why Cash Carter is living the way he is and behaving like crazy in this trip, and it makes me sad, but what he does in the end for this group of strangers is stranger than fanfiction.
Denia Books & Baubles®. 