Name: Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend
ISBN: 9780751547870

Matthew Green

Goodreads finalist 2012 as voted by over 1 million readers My name is BUDO. I have been alive for 5 years. 5 years is a very long time for someone like me to be alive. MAX gave me my name. Max is 8 years old. He is the only human person who can see me. I know what Max knows, and some things he doesn't. I know that Max is in danger. And I know that I am the only one who can save him.

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend

Matthew Dicks

Memoirs of an imaginary friend

M.G Derio 

Oh dios, me encanto, lo mejor LO GANE EN UNA APUESTA, El el libro tiene todo es simplemente hermoso no puedo describirlo bien, son unos de esos libros que te marcan

Imaginary friend Budo narrates this heartwarming story of love, loyalty, and the power of the imagination—the perfect read for anyone who has ever had a friend . . . real or otherwise Budo is lucky as imaginary friends go. He's been alive for more than five years, which is positively ancient in the world of imaginary friends. But Budo feels his age, and thinks constantly of the day when eight-year-old Max Delaney will stop believing in him. When that happens, Budo will disappear. Max is different from other children. Some people say that he has Asperger's Syndrome, but most just say he's "on the spectrum." None of this matters to Budo, who loves Max and is charged with protecting him from the class bully, from awkward situations in the cafeteria, and even in the bathroom stalls. But he can't protect Max from Mrs. Patterson, the woman who works with Max in the Learning Center and who believes that she alone is qualified to care for this young boy. When Mrs. Patterson does the unthinkable and kidnaps Max, it is up to Budo and a team of imaginary friends to save him—and Budo must ultimately decide which is more important: Max's happiness or Budo's very existence. Narrated by Budo, a character with a unique ability to have a foot in many worlds—imaginary, real, child, and adult— Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend touches on the truths of life, love, and friendship as it races to a heartwarming . . . and heartbreaking conclusion.

A Novel

Best book i have ever read. Definitely recommended :)

Victoria Grace

All I can say is this is my all time favourite book it has everything.

Barbara Rosas

¡Me encantó este libro! No es lento y es original, no es muy pesado tampoco. 
Lo único que no me convenció fue Budo de vez en cuando, aunque sigue siendo uno de los mejores amigos imaginarios con Oswell.
El final me dejo expectante ¡aún no puedo entre como fue que pasó eso!

Kourtney

I love the originality of the story. When I read the back of the book, it sound so original I had to buy it. How many other stories have you read that are told from the POV of an imaginary friend? 

I don't want to give away any spoilers so I will say that the action in the story had me sitting on the edge of my seat furiously flipping pages waiting to see what happened next. I think I felt more anxious than Max and Budo put together! And the epilogue?!? I'm not afraid to say I teared up a little. 

I know I have seen many people compare this book to Room as that was told by the POV of a child. This felt different to me. We got to see a whole different world that exists around us (imaginary) and get to know characters that we never could have in Room. This stands alone and apart from that. 

Highly recommend to all my friends who can suspend disbelief and who once had an imaginary friend!

Jan Talkington

Slow going at first - but oh what a story! It will stay with you and make you evaluate a few things in your own life.

Christina Hufford

(You can also read this review on my blog here.)

Sometimes you'll come across books (I seem to come across them all the damn time) that you want to like, and you do like, and after you finish them you still like them ... and then a day or so passes, and you get to savor a little better the aftertaste the book left on your tongue, and your opinion of them degrades slightly in overall value.

When I first finished Memoirs on GoodReads, I gave it a 4 star out of 5 rating. But as I sat down to actually write out my review, my opinion depreciated, and I've settled on a 3 out of 5. Now, that still means it's a good book, and I would still recommend people read it -- it's exciting and can be emotionally gut-punching, but to properly give my reactions I do have to note, some of the mechanics of the writing, I felt, got in the way of the story.

Let's start off with the good: 

The descriptions of Max's Aspergers-like symptoms were well-done, and through Budo you got a vivid sense of what it was like to be in Max's head. The inability to adapt to a new routine, the decency to get stuck, the shyness and honest dislike of interacting with other people. I'm not sure if the word 'Aspergers' is used in the novel, I don't remember it outside of the description on the book's sleeve, so there was a satisfactory amount of showing vs. telling -- at least when it came to Max as a person.

The entire world of the imaginary friends was a really interesting, cute one to explore: what the different imaginary friends looked like, how they can't interact with the real world, and the tragedy of their ultimate demise -- imaginary friends fade away and disappear once their little boy or girl stop believing in them. There were a couple oof, right in the childhood moments in this respect; just like Andy giving up his toys in Toy Story 3, the process of children outgrowing their imaginary friends hits you right in the feels. 

The story could've gone in a lot of different directions; I anticipated it would follow Max through therapy and as Max connected with the real world, Budo would start to fade...


not unlike Hobbes in this rip-off Calvin and Hobbes comic that, even knowing it's fake, nonetheless stings like a salty knife in a still bleeding wound

... but the plot actually went a far more exciting route -- Max gets kidnapped by one of his therapists, and Budo is the only one who knows. But as Budo can't interact with the real world, can't pick up a phone or a pencil, he needs to figure out a way to save Max all by himself.

Some aspects of the plot were a little frustrating, as it takes Budo a long time to think of things that, as a reader, I came up with instantly. The moment Max was taken, I wanted Budo to run inside and tell one of the other imaginary friends to quickly ask their child to raise a hand and tell a teacher they saw the kidnapper walking to the parking lot with Max. Obviously that would've ended the story too quickly, but when, a hundred pages later, Budo finally thinks of this himself, I was a little frustrated. 

Also, when Max's mom said "I hope Budo's with him," I thought maybe if a parent started believing in a child's imaginary friend, they could see or interact with them too -- so maybe Budo could get a message to Max's mom. I guess that was out of the realm of believability, but what really happened -- the longwinded explanations of the trips to the hospital, and Oswald, and the rather dry action scenes explaining in retrospect why Budo was scared of Oswald, felt overly complicated and a bit of a let-down. Oswald as a character was suggested but not spoken of until the plot was ready to use him in the novel's final climatic throes; I think I would've been more connected to his character if Oswald and the hospital fight had happened in the beginning of the book, rather than been told about much later on. 

Overall, in fact, I think I liked the premise of this book more than the story itself. The world of imaginary friends is a fascinating one to explore, and could potentially be very nostalgia-inducing and emotional for adult-children like myself, but it gets sidetracked quickly by the kidnapping adventure. The writing could get really repetitive too. Budo would talk about something about to happen, then it would happen, and then he would talk about it some more, relating over and over again the facts of the situation. I found myself skimming many paragraphs of the same existential waffling about the merits of existing vs. not-existing, as Budo had run through it all a half dozen times before.

Budo was also a very depressive character to read, as he's more concerned with his own death than Max; I would've expected an imaginary friend to be lovingly bonded with their child, and almost all the other imaginary friends are -- it made Budo seem a little selfish, though I suppose that was for the purpose of the book's climax, which is when Budo must face the fact that to save Max, he might have to sacrifice himself. While I appreciate that from a character arc point of view, by that point in the story, it was hard for me as the reader to root for Budo, as he had acted so selfishly (and sluggishly) throughout the novel. 

A little more insight into the kidnapper would've been nice too, if perhaps outside Budo's ability to give us. I mean, this lady had a secret room in her basement. People don't just have those. To keep the villain of the story a little more on this side of believable, I'd have liked some more explanation.

Also the gas station storyline also seemed like an unnecessary subplot, and didn't really affect the main storyline save in the cheesy epilogue. 

Okay, I swear I'm done complaining. 

I know my What I Didn't Like blathering seems a lot longer than my What I Liked section, but usually that is the end result of a novel I saw a lot of potential in (and really did like!!) but in retrospect expected a little more out of. But I would recommend this book! It was suspenseful and exciting, and I read it in two days so you know it's a story that grabs you and keeps you turning pages. Just, afterwards, I wanted a little something more. The world of the imaginary friends is one with heaps of potential and could lend itself to some really emotionally gripping stories (the imaginary friends of the cancer ward were particularly heart-breaking), but Budo was such a downer character, and the plot boiled down to something so simple (and Law and Order story-of-the-week-esque, I kind of wished we were looking into this world through someone else's eyes.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend

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