So Goth your bats have black lipstick ...

Right, so I have never been very good at those "X is so Y, that ..." but what can I say? This book inspired me ...

Anyways.

I do not even know where to begin with this one. I think I started going, alright - three main characters, all same high school - something weird about the whole lab thing and ... oh wait, this is completely different - wait? Who the heck is this? What is going on now? Wait - who? What the heck? Vacuums!?!?

It is a mind trip.

Here is the synopsis:

Sophie Blue started wearing a black skirt and Midnight Noir lipstick on her last birthday. It was also the day her father disappeared. Or spontaneously combusted. Which is sort of bad timing, since a Popsicle truck with tinted windows has started circling the house.

Kenny Fade is a basketball god. His sneakers cost more than his Jeep. He's the guy all the ladies (and their mommas) want. Bad.

Sophie Blue and Kenny Fade don't have a thing in common. Aside from being reasonably sure they're losing their minds.

Aha ... and here is something off Beaudoin's website for anyone who wants to pick this book up:

Five Things The Publisher Said About Fade to Blue:

1. "It’s so fast paced I had no clue at all what was going on except there’s a vacuum store in space and this girl’s brother should probably hit the Jenny Craig hard."
2. "It has feel-bad moments"
3. "It’s scream-out-loud scary."
4. "You’ll sort of hate The Nurse more than you hate your own family."
5. "Some people prefer The Matrix, but those people are stuck in the past with their creeper Keanu-and-leather fetishes."

Some Advice I, Sophie Blue, Can Give You, The Potential Reader:

1. Sell a couple of your old Family Guy dvds and then use the cash to pay for this book. Use what’s left to buy black lapstick. If you’re a guy, buy the lipstick and a Bauhaus t-shirt.
2. My father disappeared. Keep an eye on yours. You may need him sometime.
3. Someone keeps breaking into our house, but they never steal anything. If someone keeps breaking into your house and never steals anything, there’s probably something good hidden there that your mom never mentioned and is what those people are looking for. Find it first.
4. After you buy this book and bring it into the school cafeteria and stand on a table and read parts of it out loud in a sort of Hungarian/Dracula accent, your popularity will increase exponentially.
5. Start reading more comic books. Comic books have all the answers. Especially vampire ones called "Bite Me Once, Suck Me Twice." A smart reader knows that vampires are this generation’s oracles.

And this is about as coherent as it gets.

So instead of dealing with plot points and such, I will delve into what I liked about this book: it had heart. It was a metaphysical thing: we're so in the mind of Sophie, while she spins the wheel and becomes someone new, over and again - it's a fascinating read.

Particularly, the twindom that is Sophie and O.S. - it's fascinating to read and so compelling - you want to know more about them, you want to read more about their relationship. O.S. sees things so differently, so vastly different then Sophie, that you're left wondering which perspective you ought to be trusting. And then you add Sophie's friend Lake, and all the other randoms - and you're suddenly sure the twins have something about them.

The idea of a "Virtuality" itself is kind of an interesting one: I mean, how does that work exactly? And how can you settle it with the dying and rebirthing and perspectives? And is the evidence you gathered through reading really evidence at all?

Again, if you like to be philosophically challenged, this is your book - it's fresh and funny and complicated and I so respect Beaudoin for being able to write it!

It is the kind of book that you alternate between loving it and throwing it at the wall; screaming with incredulity and squealing in delight! And it keeps you wondering way after you close it and it down. I finished it in just about 4 hours, and I could not put it down!

Highly recommended! :)

Now, the only question is: Why are there not more zombies?