A review by trid_for_kicks
Vibes by Amy Kathleen Ryan

5.0

I read this book in about seven hours.

Dude.

I'm having trouble thinking of words to describe it. It wasn't the best thing I've ever read. It wasn't this super fun ride all the way through. It was real, and quirky, and annoying, and beautiful, and flawed. I loved the main character right off the bat. And then I started to kind of hate her. This roller coaster continued throughout the whole book. Which is one of the main things I liked about it, I think. It felt like I was getting a look at a real person: she's smart, funny, sarcastic, a troublemaker, she loves opera and her cat, but she says mean things and does mean things and thinks mean things. Despite her ability to read minds, it seems that she completely underestimates everyone around her, thinking people are worse than they are. That's another thing I love about this book. So many times, people portray "mind readers" as some kind of wise observer of the human race (think Charles Xavier). But Kristi is just a teenage girl, who's so totally screwed up and awesome, trying to figure out how to navigate her existence.

Spoiler

I loved her voice from the beginning, and knew I liked the main character. But then when she started going about her pranks and other antics, it was like emotional whiplash: didn't she realize that people could get seriously hurt? She only cared about ruining someone else's day, so she could get a laugh. The fact that she later actually hurts someone, and feels bad about it, makes me love the book even more. It shows growth, for one thing, and shows Kristi becoming something else, something more. She is very clearly wrapped up in her own world, too afraid to get hurt or abandoned again to let anyone else in. So, instead she just sees the worst in people, injuring anyone who tries to get close, and telling herself that the other person deserved it. But she gets a cold, hard slap in the face from reality, and learns to overcome that part of herself. She gets the courage to do the scary thing.

Also, I loved that her "gift" isn't always reliable. That she can be wrong sometimes, and misunderstand things. I loved that she came to doubt it, thinking that maybe she was just "intuitive." You don't usually get to see that kind of second-guessing when it comes to mind readers in fiction.

I loved that Gusty was totally a dork and clueless, but also legitimately cares for people. He seemed like a real person, too. Like how shy he got around Kristi. How he loved dogs. How slow he is, reading and writing. How, when Kristi opens up and shows how troublesome her life is, he is struck by the fact that she has "real problems", and is just trying to help her. I couldn't stop laughing for a solid five, ten minutes when I read the scene where he put his chin on her head and proceeded to pretend to have a normal conversation.

Anyway, so this book is awesome. I love how off-the-wall it is, how a lot of things went in unexpected directions

Spoiler

Okay, so Gusty saying "sick" all the time, that was pretty obvious from the beginning. Actually, from the description of the book, when it said that "Gusty Peterson, the hottest bimboy in school, is always thinking I'm SICK..." I was very confused, because I thought "doesn't 'sick' mean awesome?" But as I read through the book, and saw how Kristi was an opera nerd, prefered to watch the news over just about anything else, and was kind of unsocialized outside of bullyish banter with the other students, it makes sense that she didn't know what a skater dude meant when he said "sick". Other than that, though, most things weren't so easily anticipated.

I loved it. That's all I can say.