A loner whose best friend is her mysteriously absent mother, she would love to be played by Kate Winslet in the imaginary filmed version of her life, but she later amends this choice. In Arnold's crisp prose, Mim comes alive in all her flawed glory. Readers don't need to relate to her or even like her to feel invested in her story, which takes bizarre, heartbreaking, but always revelatory twists and turns.

Show moreĭavid Arnold has created an unforgettable main character in Mim. All these issues - and more - come into play as Mim travels the 947 miles and meets a host of strangers, some heroic, some villainous, but most somewhere in between who change her life. Mim is no stereotypical teenager: She may or may not suffer from psychosis she's temporarily blind in one eye and she has a displaced epiglottis and can pretty much vomit on command. After discovering that her beloved mother is sick back home in Cleveland, Mim decides to steal her stepmother's secret stash of cash and take the first Greyhound bus headed for Ohio by Labor Day, which is only four days away. Mim lives in Jackson, Mississippi, with her father and his new wife, Kathy, but she refers to the town as Mosquitoland, and it doesn't feel like home. The opening page of MOSQUITOLAND is one line - 'I am Mary Iris Malone, and I am not okay' - and the second is the first in a series of letters to an unspecified relative named Isabel, to whom Mary (or Mim, as she prefers to be called) is chronicling the story of a 1,000-mile journey she took to get home to her mother. This is an ideal pick for teen readers who appreciate well-written stories about self-discovery. In keeping with the characters, the language is occasionally strong, and a couple of characters drink or smoke cigarettes.

There are some intense scenes (a deadly bus crash, a child molester who attacks two teen girls, a couple of fistfights, and one knife-wielding thief), as well as a strong attraction between a 16-year-old and a 21-year-old that stays just inside the boundaries of appropriate, but it's nothing most mature teen readers couldn't handle. Author David Arnold's debut novel explores many challenging subjects, including psychosis, sexual assault, divorce, blended families, depression, suicide, sexual orientation, intellectual disability, and, of course, friendship and first love. Parents need to know that Mosquitoland is a powerful coming-of-age novel about the brilliant, half-blind, mentally ill 16-year-old Mary Iris Malone, who's on a tumultuous four-day trip from Mississippi to Ohio to reunite with her sick mom. A couple of small characters smoke cigarettes, and Mim often discusses her prescription drugs.ĭid you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Mosquitoland by david arnold