


I’m not sure Mosquitoland is for everyone. I was almost sad when the book ended because I wouldn’t be spending more time with Mim and her friends. The people she meets are fascinating and quirky, and I wanted to go on more adventures with them. The more she revealed about her family and her life, the more I enjoyed spending time with her. But the more time I spent with her, the more I grew to love her. It starts out slow and kind of awkward Mim is a tough shell to crack and a prickly one at the beginning. And she discovers that maybe humanity - and Kathy - aren’t as bad as she’s always made them out to be. There are some creepy people on the road, but she makes friends, both the casual and best-friend types. It’s not as easy as it sounds there’s peril in them-thar woods, and Mim is in for one of those life-changing adventures. She’s headed back to Ohio this Labor Day weekend to see her mother, come hell or high water. She takes off from school, packs a backpack, grabs Kathy’s coffee-can stash of money, and heads to the Greyhound bus station. So when she’s called to the principal’s office and overhears her dad and Kathy talking about Mim’s mom with the principal, she snaps. This does not sit well with Mim, who just wants her mother, her old life and her home back. Her father, in a whirlwind, divorced her mother - who then disappeared - married the waitress at the local Denny’s, then relocated the three of them - Mim had no choice - to the middle of nowhere, Mississippi. Mary Iris Malone, Mim to everyone but her mother, is not happy. Another swashbuckling action sequence: A wonderfully bizarre scene in which Mim witnesses hand-to-hand combat in a rural Kentucky gas station owned by a gay couple feels as if it came straight out of a grind-house flick.IN SHORT: A teen girl who is unhappy about her life goes on a road trip in this quirky and charming young adult book. She may not be fighting aliens in a postapocalyptic world, but she does fend off a poncho-wearing pervert in a rest-stop bathroom with the help of some projectile vomit. Mim’s problems feel real and her motivations urgent, but the incidents and characters she encounters take on an almost fantastical tone. After stealing emergency funds from Kathy, Mim sets off on a 947-mile trek back to Ohio, but a shockingly gory Greyhound bus accident warns you right away that this isn’t going to be an easy or normal road trip.

The 16-year-old has been forced to move from Cleveland to Mississippi with her dad and annoying stepmother, Kathy-parents who both pressure their daughter to take antipsychotic drugs for her emotional problems and seem to be covering up some disturbing facts about her real mom. Mim Malone’s parents have recently divorced. At first glance it looks like a typical Teen Problem Novel.
