Book review - Nowhere Near You

Title: Nowhere Near You
Author: Leah Thomas
Genre: mild sci-fi
Similar books: Learning to Swear in America by Katie Kennedy
                     The Other Way Around by Sashi Kaufman
Rating:

I liked it, though not the way I expected

Summary (provided by publisher): Ollie and Moritz might never meet, but their friendship knows no bounds. Their letters carry on as Ollie embarks on his first road trip away from the woods—no easy feat for a boy allergic to electricity—and Moritz decides which new school would best suit an eyeless boy who prefers to be alone.
Along the way they meet other teens like them, other products of strange science who lead seemingly normal lives in ways Ollie and Moritz never imagined possible: A boy who jokes about his atypical skeleton; an aspiring actress who hides a strange deformity; a track star whose abnormal heart propels her to victory. Suddenly the future feels wide open for two former hermits. But even as Ollie and Moritz dare to enjoy life, they can't escape their past, which threatens to destroy any progress they've made. Can these boys ever find their place in a world that might never understand them?

My opinion: When I finished reading Because You'll Never Meet Me, I was fully satisfied. The open ending was one of the things I liked about it. We didn't get pat answers, just two damaged boys determined to give really living a shot. I was more than a bit apprehensive going into this new book. It's too easy to ruin a wonderful world by revisiting it. Thomas does a solid job with this one. We take the idea that Ollie and Moritz were moving towards their own "happily ever after"s and complicate it. At first they get a semblance of what they wanted: love, acceptance, real life. And it's far more complicated than they realized. Attraction fades. People aren't perfect. We grow and change and hurt people. And it's all necessary. I loved seeing them dealing with new people, facing demons they'd have preferred kept hidden. My first reaction was to say that I didn't like this one as much as the first but on further reflection I think that I do. It's just a different, more complex, kind of like.

More Information: Nowhere Near You releases February 7.
See my review of Because You'll Never Meet Me here .
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.