I feel pretty confident in saying that this is my favourite YA contemporary of all time. The great portrayal of high school is spiced up with a feel-good, escapist tale of a kick-ass deaf girl whose hilarious narration sweeps me up every time like an old best friend, and whenever I need to feel warm and fuzzy (and swoony) again, FFoD delivers what I want before I even knew I needed it.
Read this one to remind yourself how much bigger the ideas of good and evil, morality and entitlement are than you. Also read this knowing that you will hurt lots, too, and know that if you're me, you will not read the second book for AGES in vehement denial of what happened irrevocably in the first.
If you love animals--especially anthropomorphic ones--you will love this book. If you would like to cry your eyes out over beautiful writing & a beautiful death, bring some tissues and we can sit in a circle and do a read-along and sob into each other's shoulders while wishing our hearts out for a sequel, because no book has consistently made me cry like this one.
For 100%-guaranteed-or-your-money-back laughs. This book makes me believe in friendship, the everlasting kind, and in the inherent goodness of people, and also in the existence of a Ben of my own. But that last one's not as important. *ahem*
Because, I dunno, sometimes the only way to feel like you can feel again is to be torn apart by a truly brutal ending.
Love,
