Chelsey Philpot

This was a cute teen romance that is, unusually, from the boy's perspective. Homer has fallen in love with Mia, the unusual girl who is living in a boat in the parking lot of his fathers' tourist gift shop. But Mia has bigger problems than where she's living -- she's pregnant and has no family. The only plan that makes sense to her is to head north to Massachusetts and find her favorite foster sister, who said she'd always give her a place to stay. But Homer can't let her make the trip alone, and after some cajoling his fathers agree to let him drive her -- as long as he takes along his little brother, Einstein. Einstein has a detour in mind after they drop Mia off -- he wants to ultimately end up at a conference about the end of the world.

And so begins a wacky, wild road trip, where they meet some unusual characters and things don't go exactly as planned. It's a fun, sad story, but it's definitely not realistic. The whole thing has almost a fairy tale feel to it, which is added to by the addition of "parables" throughout the story, which usually explain some bit of a character's or place's history. I'm not sure exactly how it would be categorized -- it's definitely not fantasy, and I don't think it's quite magical realism either. There's no magic, just things that wouldn't really happen.

Regardless, I thought it was a cute story even if things don't end quite how anyone expected.… (meer)