Gr 10 Up—When not stargazing, Charlie fills his time by working at a drugstore and running around town with a Superman costume under his clothes. One day, he runs after the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. Gloria is used to attracting people who are a little different, but Charlie is on the fringe, even for her. While Gloria is mourning her brother's recent death in Afghanistan, Charlie is dealing with his mother's progressively debilitating sickness. He finally has the opportunity to break free of his reactive cycle, but the consequences could be more severe than he imagined. Auseon's attempt to develop Charlie through the arc of mania is half successful: the teen's behaviors at the beginning of the tale appear to be an affectation, which causes the gradual developing of self-awareness to seem faked. The social awkwardness that Auseon writes about will remind readers of the work of Mark Haddon and Francisco X. Stork, but there is a hollowness to it. However, Charlie's belief in the powers of the Superman costume is touching in his naïveté. Gloria's confrontation with her mother over the appropriate displays of grief is powerful and moving, and could be used for classroom discussions. The pacing is slow and the dual voices in the narrative fracture the story further. Not as outright bizarre as the author's Jo-Jo and the Fiendish Lot (HarperTeen, 2009), this book will appeal to more sophisticated readers, but only those with long attention spans and patience for quirks.—Chris Shoemaker, New York Public Library
As Charlie Wyatt and Gloria Aboud recount their relationship--from strangers to stalkers to friends and, ultimately, to sweethearts--each comes to terms with grief: Gloria lost her older brother in the Afghan war and Charlie is losing his mother to Huntington's disease. Alternating chapters define otherwise indistinct voices, but romance readers and fans of television's Freaks and Geeks will be hooked nevertheless.
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