Book Rec . . . Research for "In A World . . . "

Hi guys! Mandy here. (Logged in as "Cast" as a test.)

I just finished reading a book that I immediately, basically on the first page, decided that Dave and the production team for In A World should read. Not only is it deeeeelightful, but it goes right along with the theme of a world like ours with one strange twist. So, I hereby recommend:

The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep And Never Had To, by DC Pierson. (He's even an improvisor! He apparently performed with UCB in New York.)

The novel is from the point of view of a high schooler (written in a simply, I say, deeeeeelightfully hilarious voice) who, in the battle for attention in high school, sits decidedly on the sidelines. He unexpectedly connects with another student in the same high-school-society caste. Like all high schoolers, they each have some weird personal secrets. That's pretty much all I'm going to tell you.

LIke I said, I really enjoyed the voice of the main character -- something like the painful teenage angst of Nick Hornby's About a Boy but as funny maybe as Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated. It really feels like an actual person (and in the dialogue, actual *people*) talking. I guess I'm saying, it's really . . . Authentic.

This book made me guffaw. Quite often. Which, for a book rooted in High School Drama, is saying a lot for me.

It also made me think of In A World ... not only because I totally thought Dave would love it (are you reading this, Dave? Read this book!), but because the quirk that makes the world different, it only has significance as filtered through the lives of the characters. It's their relationships that take center stage; the Quirk is only a catalyst. Rather than A Book About Something Strange That Happens, this is a book about people who are changed by the strange AND the familiar . . . it's ALL stuff that happens to them and is almost equally important.

You can find the book on Amazon, here . . . you don't have to take MY word for it.

Da duh, DUN!