David Arnold

Enduring a dysfunctional existence with her father and new stepmother, snarky Mim learns that her mother is sick and hops a bus to visit her, experiencing a journey filled with unexpected revelations. A first novel. Simultaneous eBook.

Mosquitoland

Sarah Sammis

It is a road narrative from an obviously male perspective, despite the female protagonist. Had Mim been a young teenage male, this would have been a very different story. Had it been written from a male perspective, I suspect someone like Mim would have been there — someone to be protected, rescued, and perhaps romanced. In this regard, Mosquitoland is not much different from On the Trail to Sunset and other similar early road trip books. 

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“Top-notch” —USA Today “Illuminating” —Washington Post “A breath of fresh air” —Entertainment Weekly “Memorable” —People By the New York Times bestselling author of Kids of Appetite! After the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in northern Ohio to the “wastelands” of Mississippi, where she lives in a medicated milieu with her dad and new stepmom. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland. So she ditches her new life and hops aboard a northbound Greyhound bus to her real home and her real mother, meeting a quirky cast of fellow travelers along the way. But when her thousand-mile journey takes a few turns she could never see coming, Mim must confront her own demons, redefining her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane. Told in an unforgettable, kaleidoscopic voice, Mosquitoland is a modern American odyssey, as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.

Zahra

4.5 stars

Mosquitoland is a powerful and thought-provoking story about family and friendship. Also, one hell of a journey of self-discovery.

I loved Mim because she was one of the funniest female protagonists I've ever encountered. Other than that, she was honest and not afraid of being who she is. She stood out for me because she wasn't embarassed of what makes her different, she embraced her oddities (as she said it herself).

But the thing that I loved above all else was the friendship between Mim, Beck, and Walt. It was amazing seeing them support and encourage each other while going through some serious problems. They had been on the same journey together for less than 3 days yet the bond that was forming over that time is oh so very real.

I was not a big fan of the writing style, which is why I didn't give it a 5 stars rating. It was... strange, to put it simply. Despite that, I really loved how realistic the story was. It took some time to get into the story, but trust me, it was worth it.

Melissa Palmer

Book #25 Read in 2015
Mosquitoland by David Arnold (YA)

Mim is a quirky, intelligent teenage girl who runs away from her father's house to go visit her mother in Cleveland. Mim gets on a Greyhound bus and begins her journey, meeting some nice and not-so-nice people along the way. On her journey, she finds out more about herself, people in general and the world around her. Mim is an interesting character who reminds me a bit of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird--curious, intelligent and spunky. This book bogged down a bit for me in the middle but overall, it was a good read. I received a copy of this book from the Amazon Vine program in exchange for a honest review.

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"When she learns that her mother is sick in Ohio, Mim confronts her demons on a thousand-mile odyssey from Mississippi that redefines her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane"--

Raven K

*2.5. I really wanted to like this book..and I didn't (that's probably why it took me so long to really like? it even a little). I would say it was decent but idk. There was just a lot going on, which I didn't like.

3.5 stars
Cute
Didn't really pay attention should probably re read
Some funny references
Nice themes but not super engaging

Alexa M

3.5 stars probably. I definitely enjoyed this but god I could not get over Mim’s incessant need to be the most ~quirky~ person in the room and all her ~not like other girls~ BS. Other than that, fun read & good ending.

Jeannette Ordas

This didn't immediately grab me, but I did like the plucky and perhaps unstable, Mim. The writing is visual and I kept seeing a bad indie road movie in my mind, which probably wasn't for the best. By the end though, I was taken in. 3.5 stars.

jess

This book was filled with Quirk, which ... I didn't really like. The writing was nice, but I don't like the message that mental illness is Quirky and you Don't Need Medication to manage it.

mia ¿

** spoiler alert **
           so i originally read this book in 2015 or 2016, but remembered absolutely none of it. so i decided to reread it to see if it was just that boring or if it was actually good and i was just too distracted while reading it.

it was not boring, and i really think this could have been great. the book itself is designed beautifully and the road trip setup is really fun. but damn mim was a terrible protagonist. she was one of the worst "i'm not like other girls" that i have ever read. any time she talked about other people, she had to remind you how she wasn't like them, she was cooler and quirkier and different. she really really got on my nerves. she basically had a lot of internalized misogyny and i think that's fine if it's addressed but it never is, and she was written by a man. not a great look for a debut. like i get it, mim is 16, but she doesn't really grow out of her cynicism and superiority complex. i liked that it was revealed at the end that she didn't really understand what was going on with her mom and that she judged her new stepmom too harshly, but that doesn't make up for her terrible "i'm not like other girls" traits.

also, i can't not mention the scene at the baseball stadium that reads exactly like one of those fake tumblr stories. she tells a mom to pay less attention to the game and more attention to her children, and no shit, the entire group of people around her applauds her. she's 16??? and most people in public try their best to ignore strangers in conflict, which mim literally points out!!! this scene really just made the whole book feel like a 2015 tumblr kid's dream, which didn't really help this book age well.

i think the book was redeemable for its handling of serious subject matter and family conflict. the subtle mystery of the letters and the divorce and her mother's sickness kept me reading, but the possible schizophrenia of mim really confused me. i get her dad's worry, but does mim actually have this illness or not? because if she does, it's really bad messaging for the book to end with her throwing her pills out the window.

this book was decent, but mim just sucked way more than the typical ya protagonist. she was somehow both pretentious and a hater of pretentious people, a cringey "i'm not like other girls" girl, too judgemental of not just people her own age but also adults, and simply too "quirky". genuinely a weird book that i'm not sure how to feel about because of mim.

Kathryn 

*4.75*

WHAT A BOOK. I'm so glad I finally picked this up! David's writing is absolutely beautiful! I loved all of the character, I loved seeing Mims long and difficult journey. There were a few issues I wish we touched a little more on but all in all a fantastic read.

Ella Zegarra

Original de: El Extraño Gato del Cuento

Muchos lectores nos caracterizamos por escoger lecturas basadas únicamente en que tan bonita es la portada. Mosquitoland no tiene una portada que, por alguna razón, me hace imaginar una historia diferente a la que me entregó. La veo, e inmediatamente mi mente, la categoriza como una biografía o algún tema muy serio de África :v Quien sabe que cosas hay en mi cerebro.

Debo decir/advertir antes que cualquier cosa que esta historia es narrada por una antiheroína. Así que, esta historia, sobre todo su protagonista, va a ser muy complicada para algunos de entender/disfrutar.

Obviamente al ser un personaje e historia conflictiva, a mí me encantó.

Como la portada indica, esta es la historia sobre una chica y un bus y el desastre que desencadena más desastres. 

Más de una vez comenté que el road trip es una categoría de libro que adoro, da una gran oportunidad de encontrarnos con personajes peculiares y añorables. Mosquitoland no fue la excepción, creo que tener una narradora como Mim hizo la historia más interesante. Quiero decir, ¡Esta narrado mediante entradas de diario y cartas!

Y Mim tiene una forma de contarte las cosas muy entretenidas.

Este es otro libro donde nos encontramos con una enfermedad mental como gran eje de la historia, a diferencia de algunas otras novelas, que aunque realistas y a veces trágicas, romantizan ligeramente la historia, en Mosquitoland sentí el otro lado. Generalmente este tipo de libros nos traen el mensaje de tomar una enfermedad de manera bastante seria y apoyar a quienes la tiene, en Mosquitoland es ¿qué tal si esa preocupación por la persona con problemas mentales es demasiado? 

Es difícil de explicar sin contarte un spoiler.

LO POLEMICO

Hay dos o tres decisiones en la historia que dejó a muchos lectores molestos, un tanto indignados. No voy a defender las decisiones, es más, una me hizo sentir bastante incomoda.

No sé si porque al final, las cosas resultan a su manera rara o el hecho que haya sido la única opción, pero he terminado disfrutando el libro, no puedo decir que he perdonado todo, sobre todo Poncho Man, solo que la cosa es esta: No siempre hacemos lo que deberíamos, más aun si eres adolescente, no justifico, solo resalto una realidad. Qué bonito seria que a los 17 todos hubiéramos sido tan maduros como los adolescentes de los libros. Lástima la realidad no es esa.

Mosquitoland no va a gustar a todos, es eso que llaman: Problematic Fave (favorito problemático), puedo ver todo lo que está mal, pero aun así me gusta.

¿Continuara la historia? ¡No se sabe! Tiene un final que me hace rogar que sí, o al menos una historia corta. ALGO.


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Charlotte Rayfield

The ending was wonderful. I haven't really cried at a book like this since Ari and Dante and TFIOS. Life changing and wonderful book.

Katelynn Smith

4.5 stars. 

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. I was also very surprised by this book. It was WILD. 

I loved the beginning, I thought the ending was very fitting, and the middle was pretty good too. The main characters were also so likable and I found myself with a big grin on my face multiple times while reading this, but my heart also hurt for the characters at certain points too.

Overall I thought this was a great read and I'm glad I finally got around to picking this one up.

Jelke Lenaerts

First read for 2018!!! It could have been a better one though. 
This book started of promising but by the half way mark had me just completely bored. Needless to say I kinda skim read the last half. I do see how people would like this but I just didn't.

Tera West

I can not. I mean I CAN NOT finish this book. It just drags on and on and nothing worth reading has happened (to me at least) therefore, it’s going in my “try to read again later” stack.

Abby N. Lewis

Books like this one are the reason why I read. This book is just so utterly honest and soulful and downright sassy at times, and I loved every delicious second of it. Mary Iris Malone (aka Mim) is one of the most badass heroines that I have ever had the pleasure of reading about. 

This book will forever be a part of my life. Thank you, David Arnold, from the bottom of my heart, for writing this book. Never stop doing what you do.

Meagan Fowler

This book was okay. This book was a cute adventure story of a girl on an adventure from Jackson, MS to find her mom. I liked it because it talked about some deep topics however it seemed to only skim the surface of them.

Sophia Pearl

This book is a blessing. Everyone should read it. It's not loud. It's not made of magic, but makes you feel magical, all the same. It sets fireworks off in your soul. It removes the black and white filter we too often place on the world, revealing magnificent color. It's a voice for the meek. It speaks out for friendship, family, adventure, the "Young Fun Now", a gusto-filled life, and those that feel like outsiders. Because, really, outsiders are just people that haven't found their people, yet. Mim helped me realize how blessed I am to have found mine. Arnold outdid himself, and Mosquitoland deserves to be read and reread and re-reread.

Lisa ✩ @lifeinlit

45. Stars!


“You spend you life roaming the hillsides, scouring the four corners of the earth, searching desperately for just one persons to fucking get you. And I’m thinking, if you can find that, you’ve found home.” 

THIS BOOK!

Let me start by saying how much trouble I have writing reviews for books like this. I feel I lack the talent that is required to write such a review. So I could just say “READ THIS BOOK!” and leave it at that, but I feel I owe this a little bit more than that. So I will try my best. Keep the judging at a minimum, please. ;)

This story has one of the most unique voices I’ve found in quite some time. Totally unlike anything I’ve ever read. The characters, the plot, the messages portrayed… it’s completely its own, if that makes sense. I had no idea what I was getting into reading this book. I saw the cover, I fell in love with the cover, I read the synopsis, I fell in love with the synopsis. The end. That was the sequence. Who knew I would love this book so darn much!

Mim is a total disaster! This girl is one hot mess, to say the least. Mentally, emotionally, physically… this girl is definitely going through more than her share of things. Her father and his new wife, who Mim feels is a less-than-ideal stepmother, decide they’re picking up their life and relocating to Mississippi. Of course Mim’s response to this is less than consenting. Then by accident she finds out her mother is sick, and decides to set off on a road trip to go find her back in Cleveland.

“As simple as it sounds, I think understanding who you are–and who you are not–is not the most important thing of all Important Things.”

And Mim isn’t the only interesting characters. There are SO many more!! Talk about a road trip book – this is top notch! Anyone who knows me knows of my total obsession with road trip books. And this book is exactly why I love them. All the interesting places, people, and events that occur all the way keep for a fast-paced and enjoyable story. No slow times, no ranting about nothing… just full-on road trip drama and fun! I LOVE IT!

I adore this quote, which I also see is in the synopsis, but I just had to share it again. It’s puts the biggest smile on my face. It’s perfect and explains Mim to a “T”!

“I am a collection of oddities, a circus of neurons and electrons: my heart is the ringmaster, my soul is the trapeze artist, and the world is my audience. It sounds strange because it is, and it is, because I am strange.” 

Right?! How can you not love this girl?!

And I can’t give all the credit to Mim herself, since David Arnold did WRITE this story. This guy has major talent! And I will DEFINITELY be reading more of his books, there’s no question. If you’re at all even the slightest bit interested in reading this book after checking out the description and maybe a few reviews, trust me, just pick it up and give it a go! It’s such a rewarding book in so many ways. This book is on my TBRR (To be reread) and I WILL experiencing this story again. :D

Audiobook Impressions:
I’ve listened to one other book narrated by Phoebe Strole, which was The 5th Wave. And as an audiobook lover, it speaks volumes to me that I didn’t realize it was the same narrator. For one narrator to narrate two completely different types of stories and take on the characters to such perfection that I don’t even realize it’s the same… now that’s talent! Phoebe became Mim to me, and only Mim. She was exactly how I would picture her. Her voice, her emotion… it was all perfection. Phoebe is definitely a narrator that, in my opinion, can narrate just about anything beautifully.

(Thanks to Viking Childrens for the review copy!)


  Find this review and others like it at Lost in Literature!

Laura

Some people should die, that's just unconscious knowledge

Yes, that is a (rather aggressive) Jane's Addiction lyric to start off with. Fight me. I couldn't stand this book. The fact I even read it in the same week as We, the Drowned makes it even worse. That was a masterpiece, a future classic. Mosquitoland reads like David Arnold shit out a thesaurus. 

My biggest problem with this book is right there on the cover. Mary. Iris. Malone. God, she's such an anomaly, isn't she? She's just so different and witty and snarky and quirky, right? And smart too. Because, she, like, uses big words. Oh, and don't forget rebellious. Because she, like, steals her stepmother's coffee can full of money, and runs off a thousand miles away to Cleveland to visit her enabler mother without even giving either her very worried stepmother or father the courtesy of a phone call, only to act shocked when they file a Missing Persons report despite the fact that she's sixteen fucking years old and with a history of (supposed) mental illness. And we're supposed to root for her? 

If you can't tell, I hated her. I hated her stupid pretentious inner monologue. I hated her contrived dialogue. I hated how she acted so selfishly, acting like the horrible things she did to people were supposed to make her real. She had a serious case of Special Snowflake Syndrome, to the point where she self-describes herself as an anomaly because, and get this, she prefers the ocean to the lake. Not only that, she wants to both read a book, and go to a party. Oh, and she actually read Brave New World in high school, and also spends her lunch periods pondering the works of Christopher Nolan (because we all know he's a true artist of film). 

And here's the thing, even though she's supposedly smart and so different from the rest of her classmates because she uses big words and "reads books", there's no real sign of her being exceptionally intelligent. The pop culture she references aren't particularly sophisticated. She likes Elvis and Johnny Cash and other older artists. I like those artists, too. She makes references to The Lord of the Rings, and one brief one to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (though she calls it Cuckoo's Nest, which Arnold must think makes her sound so literary, but sounds stupid as hell to me), as well as Brave New World. And that's it. Her bookishness is nonexistent unless told to us, as well as most of her other interests. Her personality is made up of informed attributes, making her flat as the paper this book is printed on. Hate to break it to ya, Mim, but you ain't special. I know high schoolers who read classics like Crime and Punishment for fun and analyze David Lynch films at lunch. Hell, I was one of those high schoolers. I didn't think I was anything special. I just assumed I was an individual, just like everyone else. 

Other issues, other issues. Okay, I hated the letters. I hated the writing (trying too hard, says I) (also, lose the all caps and interrobangs, you're writing a novel not a blogpost). But one thing that really got under my skin was the way medicine is portrayed. Arnold must have known it was a mistake to show anti psychotics as the devil plot of Big Pharma, because he did attempt to make it up at the end, but too little too late. If a kid who actually did suffer from auditory hallucinations read this book, and saw how Mim actually stopped taking the medication she was prescribed to help with that exact problem and she ended up being perfectly fine. Not only that, it also turns out that the medication was what was causing her nausea! So really, her going off this medication was the best thing ever. What if that kid goes off his medication because of this book? It's rare that I pearl clutch like this, but it's extremely irresponsible of Arnold to include this. And no, I don't care that Mim isn't actually mentally ill. Because honestly, like so many things in this book- divorce, mental illness, sexual assault, etc- it is nothing more than a plot device to Arnold. There was another part that actually managed to, well not offend me, but just, I don't know, make me hella uncomfortable. Basically, at one point Mim and Love Interest (Beck) actually take Walt, who has Down Syndrome, to an animal hospital when he comes down with food poisoning. Let that sink in. And then later, they describe him as being their pet. At that point, my eyebrows were sky high. 

I have too many other things to bitch about and too little time, and besides, I think I've going to sound like a broken record because frankly Mim could have discovered the cure for cancer and I'd still tell her to go fuck herself. So I'll just say this: if you like John Green, you will love this book. If you don't, then this book would probably turn you off YA contemporary for a while. I haven't been this angry since It Takes One.

Kate

While I had a lot of issues with this book, overall, it was an enjoyable enough read. I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped I would. 

TW: homophobia, homophobic slurs, sexual assault, suicide, fatphobia, discussion of suicide, ableist language/slur, ableism.

Mosquitoland

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