QUICK SUMMARY:
Gracie lives in a world where the mythical creatures never went extinct. The creatures in the world force them to sometimes use tunnels to get to school and shelter inside during dragon migration season. (The dragons also burn down a taco bell or two occasionally) Despite all of these inconveniences, it is life as normal until a dark cloud comes for her little brother. Dark clouds carry off people who are meant to die, such as sickly Sam. Gracie's father is a (sometimes ridiculed) weatherman who believes in the existence of the Extraordinary World-- a world in which there are no dragons, Sasquatches, mermaids, magic creatures at all. Even with their doubts, the family is too heartbroken to lose Sam, and leave in a Winnebago to find the edge of the world, where they will cross into the Extraordinary World and save Sam's life. (After all, if there are no dark clouds, maybe even immortality is possible!) There's Guardian angels, and witches, and ghost pirates, and sea monsters on the way.
HOW I FEEL ABOUT IT:
Oh gosh.
The feelings.
As a writer I often think about how I could flip a genre over and change it to be the exact opposite... but still good. It often gets too complicated.
I think a lot of writers try to think this way, but Jodi Lynn Anderson hit the nail right on the head.
I am in love with this book. I've read it four or five times because I seriously have an emotional connection to it at this point.
I've never read a book that integrates the fantasy aspect into a realistic (and MODERN) world with as much skill. I credit this to the characters and their opinions and feelings about it. It seems normal, but not forcefully normal, and it is questioned the same as our normal life is. I LOVE it.
The ending... which I will not spoil... is perfect. It is sad, emotional, meaningful, strange, and relatable in the creepy way that a character experiencing something you would never experience can reflect how you know you'd feel perfectly.
The feeling the ending gives me is that poetic feeling where you have left behind something and gotten very caught up in a whirlwind of a more meaningful and exciting and all-consuming endeavor... and then you go back because it is over. And it doesn't feel right anymore. It feels little and small, and unimportant. You feel like you are above it, and that you're life is where the bigger thing was, not where you're going back. The whole world fades to gray.
Next, the family bond in this book is HUGE. Our star character travels with the same small group of people in confined quarters for the whole journey. There are many side characters along the way, but the focus on the familial BOND is something I can only hope to find in more books. Everything is about the journey. I've seen a one star review that said the world building was horrific. That's not the case at all. Of course, there wasn't much opportunity to change the world much from the one we know, (surprise, we're the "Extraordinary world.") BUT the ground they cover shows a wide range of how things may have changed just a bit because people learned to cope with the environment in a different way.
When I hear fantasy, sometimes I cringe because all I can think of is the "ye olden days" with weird sounding language and old balls and dragon trainers and stuff that should seem exciting but is honestly tiring me... this book is actually new. It's more current. It reads like an ordinary realistic fiction book but FANTASY that still isn't plastic or silly. It is dystopian either, thought those aspects can be cool sometimes in fantasy books.
READ. THIS. BOOK.
When I read fantasy reviews and someone tells me to read it I get stubborn and I don't do it. DO it. DO it. This is my favorite book right now. Don't you trust me? Lol.
P.S. Get ready for a GOOD and EMOTIONAL ending.
(The read dates are all set to today, I don't remember the actual dates but I do know how many times I have read it.)