Pretty typical YA book with easy writing and an interesting idea. I bought this book while I was on a trip. My boyfriend and I were shopping in a city nearby, I had to go to the bookstore like always and saw this book. I was eying it for a while so when I saw it I just had to buy it.

The story is about Noah and he strange fascinations. (like you couldn’t get that from the title.) Noah is a normal teen in a normal town in the US. He lives his normal life with his two best friends who happen to be siblings. All kind of things make Noah’s life the way it is. His friend loves DC comics. His friends and him decided to go to the same college. After a party and a fight with his friend something happens. Noah wakes up the next day and noticed weird changes in his life. His mother suddenly has a scar on her face. His friend is not a DC but a Marvel fan. To top it off his two best friends are planning to move across the country so they can go to a different college. Can Noah thing to the way they were, or does he have to live with the consequents?

I was pretty excited to read this. I know the author is a close friend to Adam and Becky. Since I love both their books I was hoping for a similar vibe with this one. For the most part I got it. The book is very easy to read. Even when I wasn’t feeling reading for a while at the beginning of the year this took me straight out of it. It made me want to pick it up again and again. Which is a good thing. The characters were lovely and I had a fun time while I was reading the book. The author makes you really care for the characters. I found the idea of the story interesting. Having a main character going through all these changes and figuring out what happened and how he has to deal with it was a good time.
Why this wasn’t a 5 star reading for me has to do with the fact that I wasn’t totally happy with how it ended. It felt like a cheap way out. Having spent an entire book with this situation to just have it end in an abrupt way feels a little lazy.

A fun book with a bit of a bitter ending. Don’t let that stop you from reading an entertainment story. ( )

I couldn’t get into this. After about a third of it I found myself wondering what it was about.

I couldn’t get into this. After about a third of it I found myself wondering what it was about.

This story offers an intriguing premise: the protagonist, Noah, emerges from an attempted hypnosis to discover that details of the world around him have changed.

For example, Noah's friend Alan was an avid collector of DC superhero comics books, but post-hypnosis, Alan is a devotee of the Marvel universe. Noah's parents owned the complete DVD set of the sitcom "Friends;" now, apparently, they're obsessed with the TV show "Seinfeld."

Strangely, though, some things in Noah's life remain steadfastly constant; they're those people and things around which Noah forms his own "Strange Fascinations."

I found this to be a captivating story that kept me guessing throughout. For its use of mature language, I'd recommend this book for older teens and young adults.

Reviewer's Note: The publisher provided me with an advance reading copy.

This is definitely my favorite book by David Arnold this far. There was something about Noah that felt so relatable; he's on a path that other people have chosen for him that he doesn't really think that he wants to do anymore. The pressure of their expectations has made him unable to make a decision one way or another--something we've all definitely felt at one point in our lives.

Noah gets hypnotized and ends up in this alternate reality where he starts to pull away from his friends and family, isolating himself because he can't figure out to get back to normal. It was a refreshing young adult contemporary featuring some fantastic characters (besides Noah, Alan was my favorite), and one I would happily read again because I'm sure there's things I missed, like in any David Arnold novel.

With beautiful lines, quirky, lovable characters, and a fascinating (ha) premise, this is a book that I couldn't put down.

Read more at between-the-shelves.com! ( )