Review: Anatomy of a Misfit

Title: Anatomy of a Misfit
Author: Andrea Portes
Publication Date: September 2nd 2014        
Publisher: Harper Children’s

 This emotional, hilarious, devastating, and ultimately triumphant YA debut, based on actual events, recounts one girl’s rejection of her high school’s hierarchy—and her discovery of her true self in the face of tragedy.

Fall’s buzzed-about, in-house favorite. Outside, Anika Dragomir is all lip gloss and blond hair—the third most popular girl in school. Inside, she’s a freak: a mix of dark thoughts, diabolical plots, and, if local chatter is to be believed, vampire DNA (after all, her father is Romanian). But she keeps it under wraps to maintain her social position. One step out of line and Becky Vilhauer, first most popular girl in school, will make her life hell. So when former loner Logan McDonough shows up one September hotter, smarter, and more mysterious than ever, Anika knows she can’t get involved. It would be insane to throw away her social safety for a nerd. So what if that nerd is now a black-leather-jacket-wearing dreamboat, and his loner status is clearly the result of his troubled home life? Who cares if the right girl could help him with all that, maybe even save him from it? Who needs him when Jared Kline, the bad boy every girl dreams of, is asking her on dates? Who?

Anatomy of a Misfit is Mean Girls meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Anika’s hilariously deadpan delivery will appeal to readers for its honesty and depth. The so-sad-it’s-funny high school setting will pull readers in, but when the story’s dark foreboding gradually takes over, the devastating penultimate tragedy hits like a punch to the gut. Readers will ride the highs and lows alongside funny, flawed Anika—from laughter to tears, and everything in between.

Anatomy of a Misfit is one you're (like me) either going to love or hate, there is more endearing things to take and like from it, but there were these little pieces and quotes thrown in that I didn't like (ala No One Else Can Have You- and if you've read that, then you know what I'm talking about.) Rape and abuse, racism and other things are just offhandedly put there in a way that's kind of light and while I wouldn't say it was making fun of it, I just didn't like the way it was put out there. Look, I know what it was trying to do, especially with the racism, but I don't know, it was something that just irked me about it.

I said it's endearing- it is, and I'm going to admit I almost gave up on it in the beginning, but then got used to the writing style, because it's kind of in your face, and it takes a while to really get into it. We're in Anita's head, and you can tell you're in her head, it's very...unusual and hilarious in a way. Her sense of humour is one that you're not immediately going to get, because I didn't, but then I did, and like I said, some of it annoyed me at parts, but most of it I was laughing, seriously. I was reading while I was waiting in an office for an appointment and I kind of laughed out loud and that's just awkward.

Anita's telling the story, the beginning, all of it, all those dominos and actions that added to the build-up of the outcome. We also get a page or two throughout every somewhat chapters that is showing you what's happening right now which also builds it up, but got quite annoying fast. For all the fun, there is sad, and emotional, and it's balanced well because you can feel it when all of that hits her. But it wasn't too sad, maybe because I just didn't get the romance at all, and maybe I didn't get Anita at all either, she's quite a character, and she's a relatable character (especially because we all know what high school was like), but she's also such a frustrating character because she's basically letting somebody else rule her life, she's letting things happen and she thinks too much of what others think of her that she's not herself, she's letting herself become somebody she's not, and while I can sympathise that, doesn't mean I have to like it.

The authors note at the end is something you should read, take and learn from, because the best part of the whole novel was the message it sends, because it's a strong one.

Anatomy of a Misfit is a story about peer pressure, growing up different, growing up in general, choosing something else over yourself, and missing a point where one thing could've changed something completely. And living with that.

Rating: 3/5