I didn’t really know what to expect with The Temptation of Adam. It was another of those books that I read on the basis of being intrigued by the cover. What I got was my favourite kind of YA fiction. It is a coming-of-age novel that tackles issues in a new and fresh way.

Adam is an addict. He is addicted to porn and his attitude towards women is being affected by this. After an incident in school, Adam is saved by his teacher and family friend Mr Cratcher and is forced to work out his demons by helping him with a music project and going to therapy. Adam is reluctant. He is a recalcitrant teenager with not just one but a whole bag of chips of his shoulder.

It is through this servitude and his unlikely friendship with the Knights of Vice (all addicts in the group) that Adam is able to confront his demons.

I really enjoyed reading The Temptation of Adam. It is a novel with several layers and underneath those layers is a big thumping heart. It is the sort of novel that I would happily read again.

The Temptation of Adam by Dave Connis is available now.

For more information regarding Dave Connis (@DaveConnis) please visit www.daveconnis.com.

For more information regarding Skyhorse Publishing (@skyhorsepub) please visit www.skyhorsepublishing.com.

For more information regarding Sky Pony Press (@skyponypress) please visit www.skyponypress.com.

This book was SO amazingly good. I probably don't have enough words to say how incredible it was. I don't know that much about addiction, especially in teenagers, or anyone for that matter, and Mr. Connis handled this delicate topic with amazing honesty, humor and love. I did not expect to love this book so much. Adam is hilarious. Honest, to the point, hiding his feelings about his parents divorce and his sister moving out, and how he relies on porn every day. His punishment for what he did at school is to hang out with Mr. Cratcher, a family friend and teacher at his school who lives alone after losing his wife. Mr. Cratcher turns out to be the most unexpected character in this book. There is SO much to him beneath the surface which we see, much of after he doesn't figure as prominently in the story. The support group that Mr. C run s for kids with addictions initially appears useless to Adam but he plays along because he has to and he has an eye on Dez, a smart pretty girl in the group. The relationships between Adam and Mr. C and Adam and the group depend and grow stronger as the story progresses, as does his relationship with Dez who he is crazy about. The story take some amazing turns which I did not expect at all and but I loved each one what happened as Adam begins to realize what and who he really is. It is truly an amazing unfolding of the possibilities of life to these teenagers who think their addiction is their end. They are wrong. Definitely worth very second of your time!!! Mr. Connis, I hope that your book is recognized by other as not just a fictional story about a group of teens who have addictions, but about how these teens learn to live and love in spite of their imperfections. And that nobody is perfect. We are all addicts to some degree. LOVED THIS BOOK!!!!!!!! Much thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!!!

Hi, my name is Liis and I’m addicted to… hang on!… we’re not here to talk about me. This is all about Adam and the Knights of Vice.

I bet you’re expecting me to use all sorts of sticky (ahem) words in this review but no… minds out of the gutter, because- for me- The Temptation of Adam is one of those YA books that sits up there with The Serpent King by Zentner and I LOVED The Serpent King. Yes, the topics and themes are quite different, but TToA had a different kind of ‘beautiful pain‘ to it… The addictions in this book range from porn to drugs to self-harm, but the focus is more on the journey of healing. There are no graphic descriptions on how one or other character indulges in their personal vices. Anyway, I’m not going to assume everyone is going to like this book because we all take away and nitpick on things based on our personal preferences. In the end, it’s up to each reader to make of the book what they will.

Personally, I found TToA to be perfectly balanced. There’s hurt but also joy, there’s denial but also acceptance, there’s sadness but also fun. It’s life in a book, brilliantly delivered. If there’s one thing I admire seeing is how people… creators… poets and writers and musicians, take their pain, past hurt, struggles and turn it into something beautiful and worthwhile. Dave Connis has used his experiences***(see author's review for the book) and transferred it into a book about addiction with a hopeful and ‘can do’ attitude.

It took me no time at all to warm to Adam. Even filled with all the hurt over feeling rejected and the addiction, he’s a young intelligent lad and there’s nothing mean about him. He’s just lost. He’s lost when he does something that justifies the Anti-Adam Order at school.

It took me no time at all to warm to all the other characters either. They’re youngsters but there’s (thankfully) none of that ‘popular girl’ gang shebang or the ‘I’m so rich I’m better than you’ stuff. Well… there is that rich character but they rebel against it. Instead, they’re all someone you like and root for. They have their addictions to fight but being the Knights of Vice, they can do it together. Each member of the support group adds their little personality quirk to the mix and they bounce off each other nicely.

Outside of the teenagers, we have Adam’s dad and Mr. Cratcher as the main adult characters. It comes as no surprise that even the adult characters in this book are fighting their own personal battles. By now it might start to sound like everyone in TToA has a problem and it might be too much to take… but, no. It never gets suffocating or depressing… Yes, there’s death involved, but it’s also life.

More importantly, all the characters, adult and teenage, are like standing domino pieces and with Adam’s addiction coming to light, he gives that nudge to make the whole row fall into a path of a connected journey towards something better.

From addiction ⇒ new-found freedom ⇒ relapses ⇒ accepting the lifelong fight ahead was fantastically peppered with the blossoming friendships, loveships and family dynamics. Just like life is messy and unpredictable, so were the moments where it felt like they were all going to be perfectly OK, to moments where all fell to pot again. Moments where the fight just got too much and hopelessness kicked in, to moments where friendship offered a supporting hand to crawl out of denial towards acceptance.

What I most enjoyed was the positive effect Dez had on Adam. Dez is also in Knights of Vice. A storm in a teacup and frustrating at times as a character but let’s not forget that she has her own addiction and the way she acts, is her escape. She’s the entirety of a teenage chaos!

Dez is also the only living and breathing female that makes Adam look up from the gripping haze of porn. Yes, you could argue that love does not fix anything. No, it doesn’t. It will always be up to our very selves to fix ourselves, but love does give us that little kick up the backside to try. Love does give us that motivation and hope for the future.

I enjoyed the writing in this book a lot and it’s mostly down to Adam’s character. The way he sees Dez is not your dry account of she looks hot jibber jabber. It’s not some kind of teenage puppy love pining either. It’s something more.

Here you may ask me- is this all there is? Addiction and teenage love? No. There’s the mysterious and wise Mr. Cratcher. With his own story to tell, he is the selfless mentor the teenagers need. I can’t say much about him but there might be some music involved! In fact, the music element adds nicely to the plot development and sends our KoV on a road trip.. how they get along there, all the way from home with their addictions? You’ll just have to find out for yourself.

Overall– I am so happy I decided to read this book. Themes and characters aside, I truly enjoyed the prose. It was just perfect to create the atmosphere, whether melancholy, sad, bordering philosophical or point blank light-hearted. There is a lot of Adam’s inner monologue but it never get’s dull… the kid has substance!

DNFed at 20%. I think this book is trying too hard to be a John Green book with it's struggling but lovable male protag and TOTALLY NOT A MANIC PIXIE GIRL (but totally a manic pixie girl) love interest. The relationships between the characters feel so inorganic and I'm just not down for this.

As much as I wanted to love it, I didn't. It's not a bad story, just not something I found all that memorable.

Adam is addicted to porn, and expelled from school and forced to see his teacher every morning from 5-7 as well as attend some sort of AA meetings with other addicted youth. When I first read about the porn, I thought please no, worried there would be lots of inappropriate graphic scenes, but far from it. This book is definitely written with young adults in mind and what they are going through and has a good message, but I found myself just reading it to get it over with and find the ending, not because it touched me all that much. I just wanted to be able to move on to my next book.

I'm just really not a fan of the writing style or the tone of the book. For some reason I went in thinking that it was going to be a sadder book, so I was kind of disappointed.

This is a story about friendship, addiction and learning that you may be broken now but you won't be broken forever, that running away from your issues and isolating yourself to numb the pain will only make it worse, that love and friendship and facing the world will hurt and heal. The characters in this book feel real. The issues tackled are relevant and dealt with well. It's a good book albeit a little long maybe at times.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. I enjoyed it very much!

A very solid 4.5 stars
This is the story of Adam, and Adam has issues. The most pressing: a three month suspension from school, the most worrying: his escalating addiction to porn, the most upsetting: the fact that his mother left, his sister went with her and he was left alone with his father, which might not be so bad, except that he's kind of oblivious to all the other problems in Adam's life right now.
Adam's teacher and old family friend steps in, and suggests that attending a peer support group might help, so Adam becomes one of the Knights of Vice , and finds that despite his initial unwillingness, the defences he has built up begin to crumble.
This is an incredibly well written and absolutely current YA book, one that is unafraid to tackle big issues with honesty and empathy. The characters are interesting and real, and their interactions are both believable and moving. I particularly liked the way that love and romance was handled, given that the main character has a porn addiction, the relationship between him and Dez is complicated but absolutely believable. In fact the relationships between the various characters , romantic and otherwise, are probably some of the best and most relatable I have read about for some time.
My only fault with what is really an exceptional book, is that it felt like it lost its way just a little bit towards the end, but despite that its an excellent and highly recommended read, and not just for its YA target market. Kudos to Dave Connis for a brave, unflinching and unforgettable read.

Adam Hawthorne, receives an eighty-day suspension from school because he has done a thing revealed much later in the narrative. His disciplinary outline requires him to attend addiction group meetings, participate in a smaller forum of teen addicts and regularly go to Mr. Cratcher’s house to record a music album. In the duration of his suspension, Adam met fellow addicts Mark, Trey and Elliot, who call themselves Knights of Vice, and got involved with this girl, Dez.

I initially got excited upon reading the synopsis of “The Temptation of Adam” because porn addiction is a subject rarely tackled in YA. The book mostly revolves around this question: Can a broken person deserve love? The question it poses is interesting enough and the book has something to say about self-acceptance but it’s bogged down by a bunch of disappointing elements.

The book lost its focus from Adam’s redemption and romance plot because of elements thrown in that does not give much value. For one, it shoehorns music that does not feel organic to the characters. The reader is not given much to believe that the characters are talented enough to play instruments or work in music. Halfway through, the characters decide to hop on a road trip searching for a MacGuffin that does not yield anything much in the end. Mr. Cratcher is introduced as a seemingly important character then dropped out of the pages for a long time to give way to the said road trip. And the next time he is mentioned, we don’t even get to meet the guy in person.

The book has a tendency to repeat itself on a lot of things. Adam has a recurring nightmare that gets described too many times. Honestly when it’s dream sequence description time, I want to take a nap myself because I already got it, son: Adam has mommy abandonment issues. Dez repeatedly denies that she is a manic pixie dream girl. What’s eye-roll inducing here is she did not do anything much to prove that she is not a MPDG except to say it over and over again. The romantic plot is a cycle of Adam wooing Dez, Dez seemingly reciprocating his feelings only for her to pull away at the last minute because a.) they will just “consume” each other b.) kick addiction first before entering a relationship c. a variation of a and b junk.

Speaking of Dez, let me say it straight: I don’t like her. Her mercurial attitude is irritating. I think her character suffers in trying so hard to be cutting-edge. One moment she aspires to be the antithesis of MPDG, – a feat she miserably failed – next moment she is a rich white teenager suffering from the cool girl syndrome. Sometimes, she puts up an “I don’t care” facade. Other times, she wants drama. Even the supposedly redeeming things she do – like not wanting the comforts of beng a rich kid or when she spews feminist stuff – are a bit off for her. She was injected with too much personality, it’s brain-frying.

An addiction story is mostly a self battle of wills and there is not enough showcase of that in the book because the narrative is very plot-driven. Adam is basically just reacting to what the plot is serving him. The plot points move from one point to another without a clear direction, so that’s another problem. I think the book is aware of its aimless wandering; like there are scenes during the road trip part when the characters are not even doing anything. The book compensates by overselling the drama with Adam’s self-pity and Dez’s rich kid problems.

There is also an attempt to add a humorous tone but that fell short. One example is the banters betwen Adam and Dez which have the potential to be witty but unfortunately almost always ends up in drama and volatile conversations. When the characters are laughing, I feel like I’m out of the loop from an inside joke or something. Adam is jokey, he managed to make me snort a few times but I don’t like it when he mimics Gollum. He could be trying to be funny while trying to convey the turmoil inside him, but it did not induce any laughs from me.

Other stuff that did not work for me: characters finding things they need or meeting the right people to talk to is too convenient. The book’s commentary on sexism, racism, consumerism and other –isms are too on the nose and did not fit seamlessly with the story. The resolution to Adam’s strained relationship with his mom was truncated and solved out of the pages. The thing that made him suspended from school was addressed haphazardly. Adam was all weepy and emotional about it but he did not made me feel anything. I am not really invested in the romantic relationship between Adam and Dez in the first place and nothing really made me care until the end.

I imagine that an addiction story is inherently frustrating because the reader is whirled right in the middle of a character’s psyche with a mad cycle of recovery and relapse. But that is good frustration. “The Temptation of Adam” is a bad kind of frustration for me because of its confusing, repetitive and contrived plot elements. I do not doubt that the book has it’s heart at the right place but there are just too many things that obstructed its path to the thoughts and idea that it wants to convey.

An interesting young adult topic. Young Adam has become addicted to porn in the wake of facing his parents' separation. Through the book he fights against meeting his troubles head on. I thought this was a great premise for a young adult book and porn is an issue that is timely and important in the lives of today's teens. However, the plotting and pacing didn't carry this idea to it's full potential for me.

The Temptation of Adam deals with addiction, family and ultimately being human. Adam is addicted to porn, his mother walked out and his dad is barely there. After an accusation over Adam’s actions see him suspended from school he has to attend AA style meetings and wake up at 5 am to spend time helping Mr Cratcher with his music/receive unwanted help, after all Adam is fine.

This is a very important book, The Temptation of Adam deals with addiction in a very nuanced way. None of the characters are treated as less than for their addiction and nor is Adam miraculously cured after developing a relationship with his maybe-sort-of girlfriend, Dez. There are ups and downs, sometimes it gets a little better before it gets a lot worse. It is funny and relatable and very much a character driven story.

The Temptation of Adam is an honest and raw portrayal of addiction and what it means to be human.

Adam has just been suspended from school for a reason unknown to the reader, although it’s suggested that it has something to do with an addiction to porn. As part of his agreement with the school he has to spend time helping out a teacher with his music studio as well as attend support group sessions. It’s there that he meets the Knights of Vice and the intriguing Dez, a girl who has more than her share of problems. This book walks the fine line between philosophical/thought-provoking prose and trying a bit too hard. There are some great lines that I noted whilst reading but sometimes it was all a little too much at once. I liked how the chapter titles are the last few words of that chapter, which ties in with Dez’s fondness of first and last lines of books. I didn’t however like Adam’s overuse of the phrase “bucket’a’bull” and Dez’s manic pixie dream girl personality (although this is brought up in conversation). A bit of a mixed bag really. Warnings for suicide, painkiller/alcohol addiction and terminal illness.

"I, Adam Hawthrone, am a hub fineness and solidity."

But is he? The Temptation of Adam tells the story of Adam who’s addicted to porn. His mother and sister left him and his father rather reads Nicholas Sparks than talk to him. But one day he’s caught and is suspended from school. He must go to his chemistry teacher, Mr. Cratcher, and go to addiction meetings. He has a hard time believing that he’s addicted and to make him even feel worse: his sister is visiting him out of the blue and he’s falling in love with a girl he met at an addiction meeting…

"Something about her wry honesty hits me perfectly. The way she talks about her flaws. The borderline irrationally snaps at perceived slights. Her strength. This girl is poetry I’ve never heard before."

The Temptation of Adam tells the story of a bunch of teenagers who all have an addiction. The main character is Adam who doesn’t believe that he has a porn addiction. He’s forced to go to his teacher, to help him with his album, and to addiction meetings and that’s where he meets Dez. They both start to discover more about themselves and their addictions. They’re also falling in love, but don’t really want to because they think it’ll become another addiction. Besides their love troubles, Mr. Cratcher is dying of cancer so Adam and his addiction friends are trying to finish the album that Mr. Cratcher started years ago.

"We’re all born into chaos, and I don’t think it ever goes away. We just get better at learning how to find beauty in it."

The Temptation of Adam is such an eye-opener. You get to learn a lot about addictions and about people who suffer. The Temptation of Adam was a beautiful book, but also sad and depressing. I struggle with my own mental health so sometimes it was hard for me to continue reading. While reading the book, I felt sad, lonely and I cried so keep in mind that this book will give you all the feels! But I also felt happy and content. This book had so many hard truths but also so many beautiful and funny moments. I don’t know how to write a proper review because I have so many mixed feelings. The Temptation of Adam is such a good book and I highly recommend it!

I found this an intelligent, witty read. Perhaps not what you'd imagine setting out reading what appears to be a coming-age-novel about a rebellious teen addicted to porn. However, this character had a lot of heart. He was rather more self-reflective than most angst ridden teens I've come across (isn't that everyone? Come back to that after reading the book) but this made sense and it was also a sweet, warm read that offered a lot of hope to go alongside the angst. It wasn't until about half way through that a niggling familiarity finally hit me- this book had many of the hallmarks of the best of John Green.
I enjoyed the song references and also the chapter headings and the idea of first and last lines (again, come back to this once you've read it, which I would recommend you do.)

I love a book with a great cover and an even better title- it is why I requested an ARC for this book. I felt the premise would have been strong enough to hold my attention- teenage addiction told in a real/realistic way.

Adam is a complex teen, but isn't every teen? His Mom leaves his Dad and his sister decided to leave with her, he is now suspended and is addicted to porn. Yes! That is Adam's life. "The Temptation of Adam" focuses on how Adam handles all the things thrown at him, it explores teen relations and addiction.

While I liked the premise, I just felt the plot was very rushed. The characters didn't feel fully developed and at times, bordered on being clichéd. I really wanted to like and enjoy this novel but I could not relate or have empathy for Adam and his struggle.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.

Received an eARC of this through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

I really thought I would enjoy this more than I did. I wasn't a fan of the writing style but I enjoyed the plot. I liked Adam and I like how the author presented his addiction. I also really liked Addy. This book gave me Matthew Quick vibes and he's one of my favorite authors. I think this book could be improved, at least grammatically but overall I really enjoyed this and would recommend it.

Adam Hawthorne is fine, except when he’s not. After his mother walked out on and took his sister with her, Adam’s father focused all of his energy on getting her back. Adam focused all of his energy on porn. Because it distracted him. Because it made him feel numb. Now, newly suspended from school and with a porn addiction that’s out of control, Adam has been ordered to meet with his nemesis, Mr. Cratcher, every morning for counseling.

Elderly chemistry teacher Colin Cratcher leads an addiction support group dubbed the “Knights of Vice.” His kids meet a few times each week to check in and hold each other accountable for their actions. Through the KOV, Adam finally begins to reconnect with the outside world, realize he has a problem, and move toward recovery.

As with many other YA books I’ve read this summer, I found out about The Temptation of Adam through the 2017 Debut Author Challenge. It was on Netgalley -- as a Read Now, no less -- and I decided to dive in the same night that I downloaded it. Aside from the basics -- that it’s about a teenage boy trying to overcome a porn addiction -- I didn’t know too much about the book going in.

YA books that tackle “issues” have taken center stage recently. It’s not uncommon to read about YA characters who have problems with drugs, alcohol, or even sex. But a YA character dealing with a porn addiction? That’s a new one for me. Initially, I wondered if Connis would be able to pull off a book about a porn addiction while still keeping it at a YA level.

Overall, he succeeded. I think, especially in today’s world, that the topic of porn addiction is an important one for teens. I’m not that old, but when I was Adam’s age, we didn’t walk around with smartphones in our pockets. You couldn’t whip out your phone and Google “free porn” -- and if you could, you’d easily pay $100 for the privilege of briefly viewing a pixelated image on your two-inch screen. Today’s kids have the world at their fingertips. I can easily imagine Adam’s story happening in any high school.

Adam’s love interest, Dez, is a girl addicted to addiction. She constantly flits between vices: drugs, alcohol, theft, and yes, even porn. I applaud Connis for including a female with a porn addiction (however temporary it may have been) and for having said female character call Adam out when he said that girls don’t watch porn.

In general, though, Dez’s character bothered me. When she’s accused by the KOV as being a “manic pixie dream girl,” she vehemently rejects the label. But the thing is, she is a manic pixie dream girl. I couldn’t tell whether this was intentional or not, but simply having your character reject a label doesn’t make it incorrect when their entire personality says otherwise.

While the first half (give or take) of the book revolves around Adam’s counseling sessions with Mr. Cratcher, his meetings with the KOV, and heart-to-hearts with his family, the second half oddly switches gears as Mr. Cratcher is hospitalized and the kids decide to take a road trip to uncover part of his life story.

Now, first of all, am I really supposed to believe that these kids who come to love Mr. Cratcher like a grandpa would take a spontaneous road trip when they know he might not survive? Second, what set of parents lets a group of troubled teens take an unsupervised trip from Seattle to Nashville? Third, have any of the doctors in this fictional hospital ever heard of HIPAA? Because, just FYI, a doctor cannot walk out to the waiting room and tell a bunch of random kids about a patient’s medical history and previous treatments. That’s a $100,000 fine minimum. Just saying.

Another question I have is regarding Mr. Cratcher’s credentials. Adam is accused (wrongfully, in my opinion) of a rather serious crime. This is what results in his suspension. I’m still unclear on what qualifies Mr. Cratcher to counsel him rather than, say, a licensed therapist or actual doctor. Also, if there was such a heavy accusation, I’m unclear on why the police weren’t involved. That’s not to say that Mr. Cratcher fails to get through to him, but it surprised me that this was even an option.

Now, I read an advance, uncorrected copy of this book, so take this paragraph with a grain of salt. This might change in the final copy. I’m not going to get into spelling or grammar mistakes. Those will obviously be taken care of prior to actual publication. I will say that, for me, there were two glaring errors. First was Christmas. It happens twice, once at home and again in Nashville. The second is Adam’s claim that his sister Addy is fluent in Spanish, which is backed up by her saying the absolutely nonsensical and ungrammatical “Tu tengo grande cojones,” which made me physically shudder.

But moving on from the negatives, there’s a line in twenty one pilots’ Fall Away that gets me every time:

I’m dying and I’m trying
But believe me I’m fine
But I’m lying
I’m so very far from fine
I think this line, and all the emotion behind it, perfectly encapsulate Adam’s struggle with his addiction. Adam repeatedly tells himself that he’s fine. That he could stop at any time. That’s it’s not like he couldn’t function if he didn’t have porn. That it’s just something to pass the time. But deep down, he knows that’s a lie. He’s drowning in his addiction and he doesn’t even know how to begin to fight it.

And I, I can feel the pull begin
Feel my conscience wearing thin
And my skin
It will start
To break up and fall apart
Every time that Adam tries to stop watching porn, he’s drawn back in. He’ll be doing fine, but an argument or another stressor in his life will send him running for the comfort until he feels like he might actually die if he doesn’t fulfill his urge. I don’t often connect books to songs, but these fit so well together.

Anyway, The Temptation of Adam is a solid YA debut. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I expected to, and at times it feels a little off, but it holds an important message and I wouldn’t be surprised if Connis went on to do great things.

Such an original story. The topic of addiction is handled realistically, yet uniquely. A must for teens.

Note(1): I received this book from Netgallery in exchange for an honest review and feedback.
Note(2): This review is based on an uncorrected proof and therefore quotes may not reflect the published book.

Actual rating: 4.5 4.75

I sometimes struggle to find books that tug at all my heartstrings. But this book. Let's say there were tears.

Adam Hawthorne is fine. Yeah, he spends hours upon hours looking at porn. But he can stop when he wants to. But then there was that incident at school and now he is in an invention program with 'Mr. Crotcher' *insert big teenage sigh and eye roll*

This book was so much more than I was expecting. It is a raw, funny, easy-to-read, full on journey with a messed up teenager trying to deal with all his baggage. Dave Connis has so many perfect lines in this book that I have highlighter EVERYWHERE.

The characters are all raw and broken in their own ways. From Adam with his porn addiction, his sister Addy struggling with their parents divorce, the fellow members of the Knights of Vice (KOV) with varying other addictions, and their mentor Mr. Cratcher with so so much more. You will love them, and gun for them, and hold them in your hearts for a little longer than a fictional character should probably stay there.

The romance feels are real:

"I feel like a Pokemon. Like, before that kiss, I was Adam, but now I've evolved into Adameo: body of fire with nine million HP"

And, my dear people, the subtle awareness of the needing break society's gender-typing barriers:

"I stand. 'Author Waller R. Newell once said, 'We don't need to reinvent manliness', but gentlemen, Dez, Addy, I think Waller R. Newell is a bucket'a'bull. If manliness stays static, it gets buried in the dust of progressive humanity.'"

"'The world doesn't need any more men who don't care...Or any more men who think that machismo declines because you're vulnerable and keep tabs on how you feel.'"

This book is kicking goals left, right, and center. And I haven't even mentioned the real life album written as a companion to the book in which the album exists.

I am not kidding you. Dave Connis, that beautiful man, wrote the entire previously-fictional album, complete with more story notes and real notes and notes from the characters you are now in love with (side note: please don't jump onto this link UNTIL you read the book because there are spoilers). AND you can jump onto his youtube channel to see clips of him recording this album as well (I am still hoping it's fully for the publish date of the book. My hopes are real.)

I didn't give the book 5 stars only because I personally found the first third of the book a little slow, and was lead to thinking it was just an average contemporary YA story. I am so glad I was wrong.