Review: Anatomy of a Misfit

Anatomy of a Misfit by Andrea Portes

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



What on earth did I just read?

I picked this one up solely because it was the "Big Library Read" on the digital library catalog, so why not grab something a little extra, especially if its recommended enough to be something offered to anyone who wants it. I've since found that it's one of the hotter reads of the year, got a starred review from Publisher's Weekly, and is pretty well-regarded.

And I have no idea why.

This story follows two teens in Nebraska. There's a hot boy, a mean girl clique, and an eventual love triangle that goes a little haywire along the way. Meanwhile, we get some b-plots about theft, racism runaways, bullying, sex, and even some incoherent, barely-justified violence, all to an end where our terrible, horrible, no good very bad protagonist (who is actually the hero of the story by default of being only marginally better than the borderline evil people she's forced to be associated with) is lauded for hijacking a specific event to get verbal revenge.

Man, what?

I wanted this to be satire, or at least satirical, where then I could simply say it missed the mark. As this is apparently intended to be taken somewhat seriously, complete with a note that says it's based on the author's ninth grade year, I am either woefully out of touch with what goes on in the world or maybe, just maybe, this is a little off-center.

Either way, I can't find a single thing redeeming about this that I would be comfortable recommending. It's not obviously tongue-in-cheek enough to work in that direction, and there are no lessons to be learned from the actions of those in the story. It's just a miserable failure that I somehow convinced myself to read all the way through. I don't know why this exists or why it's gotten the accolades it has. I strongly recommend avoiding it at all costs.



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