Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Noggin by John Corey Whaley


Sixteen year old Travis Ray Coates dies. Before he dies, he agrees to have his head frozen using cyrogenics. His head was the only part of his body that was cancer free. Five years later, Travis wakes up with his head attached to someone else's (more muscular) body. Life has gone on for 5 years for everyone but Travis, and when he reanimates, he is expecting to pick life up from where he remembers with his girlfriend, best friend and parents. Of course, things have changed.

The divide between the past (which Travis thinks should be the present) and the present is a struggle throughout the book. For example, he still is 16, and since he was so sick and missed a lot of school, he heads back to high school as a sophomore; yet his birth certificate says he is 21. The reanimation procedure has only worked for one other person, and they help each other through things that no one else would understand.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters were well written and well developed. It was fascinating to see Travis interact with his best friend from 5 years ago and a new high school friend. The writing was fantastic and what I thought impressive was how the last words in every chapter flowed into the next chapter and became the title of that chapter!

I never thought that I would put a book about a boy whose head was put on another body in any genre but science fiction, however, this book didn't really deal with the science of it, but rather how to live life when everything around you changes.

I highly recommend this book for all lovers of Young Adult literature.