I received a copy of this title to read and review for Wicked Reads
Young Adult age-range: 14+
4.5 stars.
Clicked hooked me from page one, with the easy flow of the author's words, to the quick pacing, to the addictive quality of the storytelling. As a budding writer, Carson's narration is witty and clever. As a teenage boy, his one-track mind toward getting laid was true-to-life.
Carson's family is struggling, both in a failing economy and by falling into the trap of labeling each of their children. The A-type oldest, who excels and succeeds at everything she does. The middle problem child who can't ever live up to her older sister, where she falls to drugs and her only currency is in her body and between her legs, vs between her older sister's ears. Lastly, Carson, the baby- after living through the legacy of the A-type and the problem child, the parents don't motivate, nor do they care what he does as long as he doesn't act out as the middle child did. The baby always knows there is nothing they can do to be good enough, nor bad enough to be noticed as anything but ordinary.
As both the baby and the writer, I was able to completely empathize with Carson, especially later on as he struggled to get recognition for his writing, merely because of a boy who wrote the sweet of life while Carson wrote the reality. Fantasy sells while the bitter sting of reality makes people take their own measure, which is why I write what I write and why I enjoyed this book so much.
I appreciated how real, flawed, yet highly intelligent Carson was written. He was compassionate yet envious, the perfect mix of his siblings. As the story unfolds through backstory and Carson writing Autumn's Fall, where Caitlin is Autumn and he is August, we learn how his middle sister is no longer in the family.
Surfing the naughty websites, as Carson says, if a boy says he doesn't look at porn, he's lying, he finds his big sister's picture in a tumbnail of a video. As the catalysis of the entire book, the reader is taken on Carson's journey as he tries to locate his sister, drag his feet through school, and find a girlfriend who will actually get him laid. His mis-knowledge of sex was an eye-opener, where I hope teen boys read this story to learn girls are not porn stars, nor is sex like the scripted, drugged-out version they see playing on their computer screens.
I adored Carson, flaws and all. There were a few minor issues I had with the storyline, but the realism, the moral lying beneath the surface, and the human nature splayed on the pages made Clicked a page-turner.