The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane

It was a camp for teenagers in a heightened mental and emotional state...

✰✰✰✰⭐
4.5 Stars


Blurb pulled from here:

According to sixteen-year-old Zander Osborne, nowhere is an actual place—and she’s just fine there. But her parents insist that she get out of her head—and her home state—and attend Camp Padua, a summer camp for at-risk teens.

Zander does not fit in—or so she thinks. She has only one word for her fellow campers: crazy. In fact, the whole camp population exists somewhere between disaster and diagnosis. There’s her cabinmate Cassie, a self-described manic-depressive-bipolar-anorexic. Grover Cleveland (yes, like the president), a cute but confrontational boy who expects to be schizophrenic someday, odds being what they are. And Bek, a charmingly confounding pathological liar.

But amid group “share-apy” sessions and forbidden late-night outings, unlikely friendships form, and as the Michigan summer heats up, the four teens begin to reveal their tragic secrets. Zander finds herself inextricably drawn to Grover’s earnest charms, and she begins to wonder if she could be happy. But first she must come completely unraveled to have any hope of putting herself back together again.

***
I read this book in one day. 

That should say something I suppose about the ease with which I read it. The words didn't weigh on my imagination making it easy to slip into the story presented. Sometimes I really just need an escape that doesn't take a lot of energy to get to. This book was exactly that.

I loved the characters, the pacing, and especially Grover Cleveland. The book says the word "fuck" a lot and make inappropriate comments that are completely believable of the teenage cast that says them. I didn't have trouble accepting things as they were and I fell easily into the happily-ever-after-ending the author gave.

I felt like parts of me were understood in this book. That this could be real and it's possible that some of my craziest parts, may not be as unique as I believe. I didn't feel alone while reading this. Mostly, I just fell in love. The boys and girls in this book make you love them. They don't ask and certainly they don't try. You're wrangled into the mess of who they are and you forget where their crazy stops and yours begins.

I would recommend this book. It has strong language and deals with suicide. But if you're a fan of John Green's books, you will love this. It is right on par with that feel, that completeness of the human experience. 

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 4, 2018 at 11:25 PM

    I've never read John Green. Might give this a go sometime this year. Thanks for your review

    ReplyDelete

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