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Synopsis: 

Outside Anika Dragomir is all lip gloss and blond hair — the third most popular girl in school. 

Inside, she’s a freak. A mix of dark thoughts, diabolical plots, and, if false rumors are to believed, vampire DNA.  After all, her father is from Romania. Everyone else in Nebraska is about as American as an apple pie…wrapped in a flag…on the Fourth of July. 

Spider stew. That’s what Anika is made of. But she keeps it under straps to maintain her social position.  One step out of line and Becky Vilhauer, first most popular girl in school, will make her life a living hell. 

So when former loner Logan McDonough shows up one September hotter, smarter, and more mysterious than ever, Anika  knows she can’t get involved.  It would be insane to throw away her social safety for a nerd.  So what if that nerd is now a black-leather-jacket-wearing-dreamboat, and his loner status is clearly the result of his troubled home life?

Who care if the right girl could help him with all that, maybe even save him from it….?

Logan. Who needs him when Jared Kline, the bad boy every girl dreams of, is asking her on dates? 

Who?

RATING: 9/10
FANTASTIC READ

For a book that offers you a lot of laughter at the turn of each page this one sure does leave you with a tear drenched face at the final flip.

For lovers of The Fault in Our Stars, We Were Liars, and even Mean Girls, Anatomy of a Misfit needs to be on the top of your to-be-read pile.

I am officially in love with Andrea Portes. She is now marked on my list of favorite authors and I am baffled this is the first read of hers that I have gotten my hands on. Her honest and comedic portrayal of Anika is a refreshing twist in the midst of so many YA contemporaries. She captures Anika so beautifully and so authentically it makes it very difficult to get her character out of your head.

Since The Fault in Our Stars I have been looking for a novel that holds a sense of power.  A novel that grabs my attention so firm that even after the last word I am not able to let it go. Anatomy of a Misfit is that story. I beg you to go pick it up-at the library, your local bookstore, or, heck, from Amazon. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and more importantly it will make you aware. It will make you fight for who you are and what you believe in. It will force you to bare witness to the futility of appearance and the extremity of holding what others think of you over your head. This is a coming-of-age story for everyone and it’s one I will not forget for a long time to come.

Quotes I Loved:

Honestly, Portes writes with such a comedic air it is hard to only serve up a handful of my favorites. Really the whole book is like one gigantic thrilling quote, but to write the entire story on this tiny blog would be absurd. So I’ll make due with only a few of my ultra favorites.

• “If you turned a Labrador into a person you would make Brad Kline. He’s happy and gushy and about as interesting and complex as a tree stump.” (28)
• “Our house kind of looks like a Pizza Hut, if you wanna know the truth.  We used to have the best house ever, this farmhouse on the outskirts of town, with a barn and everything, but we got kicked off of it so they could build a Walmart. So, now it’s Suburbs City and a house where you might as well just drive up and order breadsticks.” (34)
• “I just want you to know, I hired a black girl. Don’t be scared.”
  It’s late afternoon at the Bunza Hut and Mr. Baum drops this news like he’s telling us the Rapture has begun. Shelli and I stand in silence at the soda machine.
  “Why would we be scared?”
  Nothing.
  “What’s she gonna do, eat us?”
  Mr. Baum and every other adult I know, seems to actually think this stuff makes some kind of difference.  Even smart people.  It’s weird. And you can never get them to talk any sense about it because it’s like it’s important to them, having something to hold themselves over. Someone to hold themselves over. (61-62)
• This moment here. This is all you get. Before you are part of the sky. (328)

All opinions are my own and are not endorsed or affiliated with any company or organization.