At the start of this book, I wasn’t impressed with the narrator (especially his continuous cursing) and the storyline, but as I continued, it started to grow on me.
Cliff is a nobody at Happy Valley High School. Everyone calls him Neanderthal because of his giant stature, and he receives the brunt of the verbal high school abuse, even after his older brother’s suicide. Until one day Aaron Zimmerman, the most popular kid in school, gets into an accident leaving him in a coma. When Aaron wakes up, he befriends Cliff and lets him in on a wild secret: while he was in a coma, he saw God and He gave him a list of how to make Happy Valley High School a better place. God also told him he would need Cliff’s help to succeed with the list. Aaron and Cliff start an unlikely friendship that leads them through many trials, like how to help their grouchy English teacher like teaching again and standing up to the school's biggest bully (who’s almost as big as Cliff) and finding out the identity of the school hacker HAL.
Like I said, I wasn’t nearly as interested and invested in the characters at the start. They seemed very stereotypical and one-sided, but as the story progresses you can see drastic changes in them. The biggest changes are with Aaron and Cliff. Aaron is the quarterback superstar of school but does stupid and mean things to people. Cliff is self-depreciating and lacks confidence in himself, especially since his brother’s suicide a year earlier. After Aaron’s coma and “meeting with God” he seeks Cliff out, apologizes for his previous behaviors, and asks for his help with his list from God. Aaron still has to deal with his past actions—they don’t just *poof* go away—but that’s a good thing. It shows teens they need to deal with their issues instead of trying to shake them away and ignore them. As their friendship continues, Cliff realizes all the anger and hurt he’s holding inside towards his brother isn’t healthy and the best way to deal with it is share his memories with others. Throughout the process of completing “the List”, he gains confidence to stand up and fight for what he thinks is right.
The only thing that hurt this book is the continual foul language. Yeah, I know. It’s there to make the characters sound “authentic” but seriously. It was way over the top. There are also lots of other sexual innuendos and comments made throughout the book, so just beware if you don’t want your teen to start talking like a crass potty-mouth.
I’d like to thank Net Galley for this advanced copy of this book in return for an honest review.
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