Check the Shelf Review: The Story of Awkward

Summary (From Goodreads)

If you are looking for a happy book about beautiful people, this is the wrong story.

If you are looking for a narrative without emotion, without regrets, and without mistakes, this is definitely the wrong story.

This is by no means an uncomplicated tale about uncomplicated people. It is by no means sweet or light.

This story is ugly.

This story is complicated.

This story is emotional.

This story is tragic.

In short, this story is about being awkward.

Peregrine Storke is an artist with an odd sketchbook full of pictures she’s drawn since she was a child. It is a book full of strange sketches and awkward characters, for there is no better way to hide from bullying and life than to create a world of your own. With a stroke of her pencil, she has given life to a spectacled princess, a freckle-nosed king, a candy loving troll, a two-horned unicorn, and a graceless fairy.

At nineteen, Peregrine leaves her home, her sketchbook, and awkwardness behind. But what happens when something goes wrong in the world of Awkward? Trapped inside of her complex realm with the bully she thought to leave behind, Peregrine discovers there is nothing worse than falling for your own villain.

Shannan’s Summary

What happens when you fall into the world you’ve imagined? Peregrine doesn’t believe it’s possible at first, but somehow the world she created in her childhood and teen years has become a reality, and she has to help save it.  But Peregrine knows it won’t be easy with the bully from her childhood tagging along and questioning the rules she has built her world on.  But the longer she spends in this world, the more even she beings to question it, till she’s not sure what truth will surface in the end.

First Off…

I think I found out about this through an email, and it was free.  The summary was intriguing enough that I thought I’d give it a go.

Thoughts:

So, I didn’t know what to expect with this book, but I was pleasantly caught of guard by how much I increasingly loved the book.  Peregrine is a character that is relatable because of her awkwardness.  I know I’ve lived my fair share of awkward moments and even sometimes still have those moments where you’re not quite sure if you fit into everyone else’s version of normal.  But as the story progresses, you get to see how far the awkward goes, and the reality that everyone has a little bit of awkward in them.

I especially liked Peregrine’s  and Foster back and forth relationship.  It’s bathed in the difficulty of figuring out how someone you haven’t seen in a while matches the person you used to know.  In Peregrine’s case that Foster was the the bad guy that made high school miserable.  But Foster also believes Peregrine has a chip on her shoulder because not everyone liked her in school.  So as they travel through the adventure, they are trying to figure out where the high school version ends and the adult version begins.  On top of this they are realizing they themselves aren’t who they thought they were.  It’s a great story of discovering identity.

The other characters in the book have their own types of awkward and unexpected, and while there are small bits of predictable, there’s are large pieces that you don’t expect.  And even though it’s a loose allegory, the insertion of the “normal world” keeps it from becoming too cheesy.

In the End

I think you should give this book a try.  It’s honestly a surprise and one that is now on my reread shelf.

10 Second Summary:

1. It’s an allegory, but not cheesy:  Sometimes Allegories can get a little too stereotypical, but this one is all around unexpected.
2. It makes you love your awkwardness:  I’ve never had problems (for the most part) accepting my brand of quirky, but while I read this, I found myself loving it all the more.
3. Unpredictable:  I loved how unexpected and different this book was.

Hardback, even though I think it’s only available in Paperback.  It’s one I’ll be rereading eventually.