Fans of the Impossible Life

By: Kate Scelsa

Narrated by: Michael Curran-Dorsano, Imani Parks, MacLeod Andrews

Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

A captivating and profound debut novel about complicated love and the friendships that have the power to transform you forever. Perfect for fans of The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Mira is starting over at Saint Francis Prep. She promised her parents she would at least try to pretend that she could act like a functioning human this time, not a girl who can't get out of bed for days on end, who feels awake only when she's with Sebby.

Jeremy is the painfully shy art nerd at Saint Francis who's been in self-imposed isolation after an incident that ruined his last year of school. When he sees Sebby for the first time across the school lawn, it's as if he's been expecting this blond, lanky boy with mischief glinting in his eye.

Sebby, Mira's gay best friend, is a boy who seems to carry sunlight around with him. Even as life in his foster home starts to take its toll, Sebby and Mira together craft a world of magic rituals and impromptu road trips, designed to fix the broken parts of their lives.

As Jeremy finds himself drawn into Sebby and Mira's world, he begins to understand the secrets that they hide in order to protect themselves, to keep each other safe from those who don't understand their quest to live for the impossible.

©2015 Kate Scelsa (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers

Angsty Good

Book told from three points of view. Mira, third person narrator, suffers from depression and missed 9 months her last school year. Just transferred to St. F private school. She meets Jeremy, first person narrative, who has trouble fitting in thanks to prejudices and bullying. Sebby, second person past tense voice, seemingly carefree inserts humor and drama into most situations. Clever use of voice and a welcome change from the first person narrative most YA authors seem to employ.

The characters are full of angst and dread for the paths they walk, yet find solace in the company of each other. This isn't a sweet, feel good, easy read. It's more realistic and combats our views on homosexuality; the impact of being fat; living up to unrealistic expectations of parents; and finding true friendship and purpose. Written in the same vein as Stephen Chbosky, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower." Enjoyed this immensely.

The story is good, not great.

Imani Parks is a sub-par narrator, so listening to her parts was a little difficult. The development of the characters seemed to be lacking and the overall story was derivative.

A warning

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

This book is only good for teenagers, people who were teenagers, or are going to be teenagers.

Great book with amazing narration

I had to read this book for my school, and it was much better then I originally expected. It is very deep and always made me think afterwards. The narration defiantly help a lot too due to there being three different voices (and different grammatical point of views) for each of the three main characters.

great story. un fitting voice actors

Lovely story ( the primary reason I bought it). ive read it on paper many times so I thought that this would be nice as well. But the narrators are not fitting in with the story AT ALL. Miras actor is alright but Jeremy and sebbys are ghastly. Jerremy always sounds panicked. the narrator obviously did not understand the nuances of his storyline. totally made Jeremy sound clueless and pathetic. AND DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED ON SEBBY. this is just crude and untrue to the character! sebby now spunds like a thirty year old who's smoked all his life. ACTOR TOTALLY MISSES FUNNY MOMENTS!!! makes sebby's character too serious and boring (which he is not in the least). PAINFULL TO LISTEN TO. please I beg you to just read on paper if you value your sanity!!

Intense

This story is hard on many levels, but is important to hear. I will look for other books by this author.