Wow.
Just wow.

This was the best book I have read recently!
5 stars!

This book started out really well and continued exceptionally until...

Spoiler

the death of Stella

. After that, I was just plain uncertain of the narrative. Looking forward to the sequel.

*I received this book from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review*
This book is not your typical teenage girl has cancer book. This book is much more raw and gritty than that. This is Evie’s story about her terminal diagnosis, somehow magically going into remission. This is Evie’s story of not being able to deal.

There were will be readers who think Evie is selfish and a horrible person, but somehow I get her. It fucking sucks to finally accept your mortality, that you only have weeks to live, and then be told that your cancer has gone away. All of this on the heels of losing your best friend, and watching your other friend lose themselves every single day.

I get why Evie lost her ever-loving mind. Not to mention that her family and cancer-free friends are horribly condescending to her. If I were Evie I wouldn’t want anything to do with any of them because they treat her as if she is fragile, yet they don’t actually try to make her stronger. Her sister Jenica, is the only one who tries to treat as if she is normal and even then Jenica is undermined at every turn.

I have to spend a moment on Evie’s parents because ohmygod they are the absolute extreme’s in parenting. In the right corner, we have Evie’s mom who likes to turn a blind eye to everything that Evie does. She makes excuses for her, and then doesn’t make Evie own up to any of her bad decisions. In the left corner, we have her dad who overreacts to everything. He even does something horrible to at one point, but he never ever tries to get Evie help. I mean I know that if my kid had cancer, then got miraculously cured, and then started having issues with school, drugs, and disappearing for hours on end, I would totally lock her in her room, tell her she is disappointing, and that she has ruined their family. Except no. No, I would not. Her parents seriously need a reality check ASAP. Evie needs treatment and help, not judgement and it absolutely pisses me off that everyone in her life judges her. How about compassion, and how the hell did Evie get out of therapy? That’s some shit that her parents should have been making sure she did, except that I think her parents are actually a little disappointed they no longer have their martyr daughter.

The romance in this book was pretty light. I do have to question how Marcus didn’t see Evie’s addiction because it was pretty obvious. I liked Marcus because I felt like he was the one person who really wanted to help Evie instead of just being absolutely disappointed in her. Marcus had his own baggage though, and I understood why he couldn’t stick around and watch Evie drown in her pain.

I liked that at the end we start to see Evie really opening her eyes and seeing the reality of her choices. Realizing that she made poor choices, but she could try to be better and stop self-destructing. The book ended on a major cliff-hanger though. So I’m kind of dying to know what happens. I would give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars. The cliffhanger cost the book about a star, because I really wanted to at least see some kind of closure.

*This review was first posted to Moonlight Gleam Reviews http://moonlightgleam.com/2015/04/invincible-by-amy-reed-review.html*

This is a story about cancer. This is not TFIOS, this isn't Me, Earl and the Dying Girl. This is the story of the pieces of a person that are left when they survive. This is the story of Evie as she tries to figure out who she is when she isn't sick anymore. What happens when your friends are still sick and the ones that aren't don't understand what you are going through? It's not an easy read but it's worth reading for anyone who has ever had a friend who's been sick and gotten better. It's just as hard after the illness as it is for the person during the illness. If nothing else, this story will teach you that you need to understand that people will not be the same as they were before the illness and those of us still in their lives need to respect that. There's a sequel to the book and I wasn't expecting one but the story leaves on such a cliffhanger with Marcus and Evie that I'm definitely going to read the next one for sure. Some of the best books aren't always the easiest ones to read but this one is definitely worth the time and the tears. It's a point of view that I think more people need to see.

oh, the ending was.. up to us readers to percept?

There were lots of raw and tender moments in the first act that made my eyes water even if the first act was slow-paced and dragging. The second act, on the contrary, was fast-paced but really chaotic especially during the most tumultuous moments of Evie's downward spiral.

Naturally, I liked Evie more when she was a dying cancer patient making peace with death and just vying for her time because she got hold of herself more then. When she went into her self-destructive, angry phase post-cancer I just sneered at her most of the time, which I think was the intention of the book. I liked living inside her head when she was waiting for death because she was more peaceful though expectedly scared.

I thought this was going to be a full-on cancer story (which I have a soft spot for due to personal reasons), but this story was really more about addiction to prescription drugs and even self-harm. The book tackled some pretty important issues but they got tangled in the web of many other important issues that this book mentioned but never fully covered (drugs, boozing, self-destruction, bulimia). The book just got really chaotic in the end that I kind of almost gave up on reading but I was waiting for Evie's redemption.

And uh, some of the things Evie did would surely warrant her a few weeks of confinement inside the hospital. As gruesome as this sounds, cancer never really goes away even if a person is ruled out as someone who's healed, cured, or cleared. She did some pretty nasty and messy shit for someone who was supposed to be dying a few weeks ago.

I kind of like Marcus for her even though he has some severe personal demons as well.

Then the cliffhanger ending happened, and now I have to wait for book 2 for the conclusion. Drat.

This book is very nearly the polar opposite of John Green's The Fault In Our Stars. TFIOS is a story that is heartbreakingly sad, but ultimately leaves the reader with a satisfied, good feeling. It is a story about seeing the real world for what it is, and accepting it. Invincible is a story about the underside of the real world, the depressing side, and how that side can destroy you. It is about a person's descent into that darker world, and the pain of both the person and the people around them when that occurs.

I'm really not sure how to correctly sum up this book. The book itself is divided into two parts, and those two parts fall very neatly on either side of the three star rating for me. I loved this book so much when I first started reading it, then it really started to lose me in the second part.

Allow me to explain.

Evie is dying of cancer. She is, at this point, basically a permanent resident in a hospital that treats children with cancer. Her cancer has metastasized into virtually every vital organ that she has, and treatment is not working. She decides that she is ready to accept her death and leave this world so that she and her family both can finally be free of the pain that her cancer is causing.

This portion of the book is absolutely beautiful. Here, the lines between the real world and the world of the dying are explored, with Evie realizing that she is slowly slipping away from her former living self in a way that cannot be recovered. Her pain here is raw, it is relatable, it is real. Evie is a strong character in this portion of the book, and I would have given Invincible a five-star rating had the narrative continued this way.

But it didn't.

Now comes the after. After the traumatizing loss of someone close to her, Evie finds that she has miraculously recovered completely from her cancer. There is no longer a trace of it anywhere in her body. The threat of death that has been hanging over her is now gone, and she has a chance to live again

At first, this second part of the book is great as well. Instead of the traditional happy ending that comes after a miracle like this, Evie as trouble transitioning back into the world of the living. Her parents are overbearing. Her friends act awkwardly around her. No one seems to know how to treat her now that she is no longer dying. But still, at this point, Evie remains a sympathetic character. Her pain, isolation, and confusion are completely relatable. If the ending were carried out skillfully, this still could have been a five-star read.

Then Evie becomes addicted to prescription drugs. Just pain meds at first, to help deal with the pain of the loss that shatters her. Then she moves on to higher doses. Then alcohol and stronger drugs. It is a sharp downward spiral for our protagonist, one that happens all to often to teenagers. This would have been a very interesting direction to take the story, except for one problem: Evie completely loses any empathy that I had for her. She becomes another person entirely. The new Evie is cruel, and doesn't care about how it affects any of the people around her, including her"love interest", Marcus. No matter what consequences come from her actions, she continues to make awful decisions, becoming a person that even she hates. Instead of sympathizing, I began to dislike Evie myself. In order for a reader to really enjoy a story, there has to be some connection with the protagonist. If there isn't, the story becomes infuriating at best and bland at worst.

So why not one star instead of three stars? Partially for the amazing beginning to this book, although the last part nearly ruined that. But also because I believe there was a deeper meaning to the story. Alright, not that deep, but still enough to redeem the story just a little bit. The point of Evie's descent is to show what a descent can really be like. It is not pretty. It is not always something that can be sympathized with. Sometimes pain can change people, and not for the better. The fact that I think that Reed is trying to make a point here is the real reason that I finished the book, and the reason that I will likely read the forthcoming sequel. Whether it saves this story, I'm not sure, but at least there was a method behind the madness.

Minor trans character

Evie was diagnosed with terminal cancer months ago. She's exceeded the number of days the doctors had given her to live so now she's just grateful for every extra day she gets. Until she miraculously starts getting better. For so long she's been The Girl with Cancer to her family and friends and getting them to see her as just Evie seems impossible. Then she meets Marcus, someone who doesn't know her past, and he makes her feel alive.

This book ended up being a faster read than I thought it would, considering the subject matter. There was definitely a before and after feel to it, before the miracle vs after the miracle. The before parts, when Evie was in the hospital, were both heartbreaking and yet also fun. It was a children's cancer ward and the author did a good job of reminding the reader of that when things were getting too lighthearted. The bond that had developed between Evie and two other kids, Stella and Caleb, was really nice and fun to read. The whole 'before' part had a bit of a Red Band Society feel to it.

The 'after' part almost seemed like a completely different book. Evie was, understandable, such a different person from in the first part. She had accepted death and it didn't come. All of a sudden she had to deal with the fact that she did likely have a future and that she was expected to fit back into society outside the hospital walls. She wasn't adapting well and everyone just seemed to ignore it or make excuses. Part of me sympathized with Evie but the more she used her cancer as an excuse for her behavior, the more she lost me.

Besides cancer, the book also touched on drug use/addiction, depression and eating disorders. There were a lot of issues going on and it felt a little overwhelming. There wasn't enough time to give all the issues the attention they needed.

The theme of old vs new continued through the whole book. Old Evie vs new Evie, old friendships vs new friendships, old romance vs new romance. Will, her boyfriend who stuck by her through everything, started off as really sweet and thoughtful while she was in the hospital and he did his best to understand New Evie, but he came across as a little smothering and condescending at times. Marcus, the new boy Evie met, was more of a mystery. He didn't know about her past so he could easily accept New Evie. I could see why Evie wanted and needed someone who didn't know about the cancer and who wouldn't treat her like she was about to break.

This was the first book in, I believe a duology, so it will be interesting to see what happens to Evie, Marcus and everyone else in the second book.

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.