Anatomy of a Misfit

by Andrea Portes

Caitlin Davies (Narrator)

In this Mean Girls meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower tale, narrator Anika Dragomir is the third-most-popular girl at Pound High School. But inside, she knows she's a freak; she can't stop thinking about former loner Logan McDonough, who showed up on the first day of tenth grade hotter, bolder, and more mysterious than ever. Logan is fascinating, troubled, and off limits. The Pound High queen bee will make Anika's life hell if she's seen with him. So Anika must choose-ignore her feelings and keep her social status? Or follow her heart and risk becoming a pariah. Which will she pick? And what will she think of her choice when an unimaginable tragedy strikes, changing her forever? An absolutely original new voice in YA in a story that will start important conversations-and tear at your heart.

• ISBN10: 1467685518
• ISBN13: 9781467685511
• Publish Date: 1 September 2014
• Publish Status: Unknown
• Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers
• Format: Audiobook
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

I feel like I am in the minority, but I enjoyed this book. I appreciate the tremendous amount of growth Anika experienced. It's sort of sad that it took a tragedy to get her to finally shed her fear of what others would think and simply assert her own beliefs, but at least it eventually happened.

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[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I know that this is about a romance and a boy and a tragic ending, but I cannot move past the slurs.

I believe people with influence have the responsibility to encourage a community of respect.  If this was a book about how racist a place can be, how homophobic a place can be, how sexist a place could be... it would be different.  There would be a lesson buried.  But it isn't.

How does having a character who calls a character "negro", having that POC character steal, and justifying it through having that same racist character say "some stereotypes exist for a reason" add to the story?

How does having one character refer to a mean girl as the c-word add to the story?

How does the slut shaming add to the story?  Stealing Vicodin and drugging her boss?

I can keep going.  I mean, the main character has a Romanian background, and she disrespects her own culture by calling her father "Count Chocula".  Her best friend's mother is moderately religious and is constantly referred to as "totally insane".  Every page has something.

Is the author trying to portray that small towns are terrible, inhuman places to live?  Okay, well let me tell you about my small town.

My town has 23,000 residents.  Lincoln, Nebraska (where Anatomy of a Misfit takes place) has a population of 280,000 residents.  So I think I have a better picture of a small town.

Growing up in the 90s, I remember one African-American in my school.  We had three Wiccans and two lesbians and one gay that I knew of.  Two or three kids of Asian decent.  One Indian family, two Greek families.  The rest of us?  Caucasian as f***.  Never ONCE did I witness an incident of racism, sexism, or homophobia among my peers.  We loved the variety of religion in our school, having whole days where we'd bring in Tibetan monks (for example) and learn about them.

Does racism, sexism, homophobia, and religious intolerance exist in my community?  I'm sure it does!  Last year, one of our residents was in the news as a white supremacist.  And the community, as a whole, as ashamed.  Outraged.  Twice as many people showed up to the protests and rallies.  He was ostracized.

My point in sharing this is that there is no way this whole town can be a cesspool of intolerance, the way it is described.  The author has said that it is a reflection of her childhood.  Did she really experience this level of hatred?  Or is it a reflection of her own beliefs?  I don't even know.  But listening to this, at points, made me feel physically ill.

Oh my gosh, let's think of other things that are seriously wrong?  Anika doesn't understand the difference between a respectful person and a violent one.  Logan is a "bad boy" stereotype.  Shelly is a bimbo stereotype.  Every character is actually a stereotype.  The scene where the family tries to hand out to the POC because they feel bad for her because she's a POC.  How the mom marries an "ogre" because she doesn't know better and needs to care for her children.

How the narrator speaks in the worst accents for all the non-white characters.

How the story adds guilt to people in unhealthy relationships.  Emotionally abusive relationships are never okay.

I can't get past all this.  It could have been a sad, tragic story about a boy in an abusive home, and a devastating ending.  That would have been enough.  In fact, a kind and loving town doing such a thing would have been a more powerful story.  But, instead, Anatomy of a Misfit just teaches its readers that Nebraska is filled with white supremacists and should be burned.

Oh, and apparently it's appropriate to use a memorial service to out a bully and get revenge.

Oh stop.  Please stop.

Do stories like this need to be told?  Yes!  Yes, it needs to be out there so people understand and know the signs and do something before the real world has an ending like this.

But not like this.

ANATOMY OF A MISFIT is like the perfect blend of the movie Heathers and Mean Girls if John Hughes had directed them.

I don't normally comment on dedications and acknowledgments in book reviews, but they ended up weighing heavily on my mind as I finished this book. The dedication reads: "For Dylan. This is a novel based on my ninth-grade year of junior high. I wrote this story because I wish I could go back in time and give this message to myself." Here's the thing, the dedication made me read this book on a personal level, calling up my own regrets from high school and rooting all the more for Anika when she found ways to do what the author didn't (what I didn't). And the acknowledgment at the very end (which I won't share because it's kind of spoiler-y) made me cry because there is a reality behind this fictional story that broke my heart to pieces.

So emotional gut punches. Yep, there are plenty. But this book also made me laugh out loud, then cringe, then want to throttle people for being so evil and shake the bystanders for standing by and doing nothing, then laugh out loud again. This is not a simple book, but it is wildly entertaining and equally thought provoking. I guarantee you that there will be parts of this book that offend you (probably more than a few). There will be parts that maybe outrage you from a moral standpoint (whatever that may be). There will be other parts that make you cheer and make you cry, and make you want this book to go on and on and simultaneously end so you can finally breath again.

And the voice of Ankia! Oh the voice! This whole book is like the most intimate of intimate conversations with your best friend. It feels secretive and shocking and conspiratorial and the entire time it's like Anika is talking directly to you:

"My boss doesn’t know I’ve been poisoning him.
Don’t be jealous but Shelli and I got a job at the Bunza Hut. We get to wear lemon-colored fake polos, Kelly-green shorts, and banana LA Gear sneakers. We get to wear this every. Shift."

Seriously. Just stop reading this review and read this book. Go. Right now.

[elvinagb]

Sweet and funny, with a big twist at the end. Well worth the read.