What follows is a maelstrom that will sweep Mim across hundreds of miles and into an innumerable number of lives. So, Our Heroine, armed with nothing more than the meagre contents of one JanSport backpack and eight hundred dollars pilfered from the back of her stepmother’s hosiery drawer, hops a Greyhound bus set for Cleveland, Ohio where her mother is suffering from ailments unknown.

Which, in Mim’s mind, all add up to a life filled to the brim with nothing but topics of substance and despair. Her step-mother is overbearing (and pregnant). Her name is Mary Iris Malone, and she is not okay. Filled to the brim with “topics of substance and despair.” The thing is, I’m incapable of fluff, so here goes. Dad agrees but says I should avoid “topics of substance and despair.” When I asked how he proposes I do this, seeing as our family is prone to substantial desperation, he rolled his eyes and flared his nostrils, like he does. But when her thousand-mile journey takes a few turns she could never see coming, Mim must confront her own demons, redefining her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane.Īs a member of the family, you have a right to know what’s going on. So she ditches her new life and hops aboard a northbound Greyhound bus to her real home and her real mother, meeting a quirky cast of fellow travelers along the way. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland. ChaptersĪfter the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in northern Ohio to the “wastelands” of Mississippi, where she lives in a medicated milieu with her dad and new stepmom.Source & Format Received an advance reader copy from the publisher for review (Thanks, Penguin Canada!), Paperbackįind It On Goodreads Genre & Keywords Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Road Trip Published March 3rd, 2015 by Viking Books For Young Readers

Mosquitoland by David Arnold