Review: Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa

Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa
Series: Standalone
Published: September 8th, 2015
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
368 pages (eARC)
Genre: Contemporary Young Adult
Acquired this book: Via Edelweiss in exchange for honest consideration
Warning: May contain spoilers
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Mira is starting over at Saint Francis Prep. She promised her parents she would at least try to pretend that she could act like a functioning human this time, not a girl who can’t get out of bed for days on end, who only feels awake when she’s with Sebby.

Jeremy is the painfully shy art nerd at Saint Francis who’s been in self-imposed isolation after an incident that ruined his last year of school. When he sees Sebby for the first time across the school lawn, it’s as if he’s been expecting this blond, lanky boy with mischief glinting in his eye.

Sebby, Mira’s gay best friend, is a boy who seems to carry sunlight around with him. Even as life in his foster home starts to take its toll, Sebby and Mira together craft a world of magic rituals and impromptu road trips, designed to fix the broken parts of their lives.

As Jeremy finds himself drawn into Sebby and Mira’s world, he begins to understand the secrets that they hide in order to protect themselves, to keep each other safe from those who don’t understand their quest to live for the impossible.   

After staying up way past my bedtime to finish Fans of the Impossible Life, unable to put it down until I found out what happened, I felt like I’d been on a roller coaster ride. This book is unexpected. It’s beautiful even when it’s showing some ugly things. It’s funny and sad, heartbreaking and hopeful. It’s loud and it’s quiet. It’s a mass of contradictions, and when I finally set my Kindle down, my mind was whirling with thoughts. I still have Mira, Jeremy, and Sebby on my mind, and think I probably will for a long time to come.

I have a feeling Fans of the Impossible Life is a book you’ll either understand or you won’t. I could see how people wouldn’t click with it or connect with the characters. I clicked with this book almost immediately and spent a lot of it nodding along and wanting to gather these characters close and hold onto them forever. They were broken in so many ways, they’d all been through a lot, and yet they kept going, kept getting up in the morning and living even when it was the hardest thing in the world to do.

There’s not a lot I can say without getting into spoiler territory, but here are some of the things I loved about Fans of the Impossible Life:

-It has a spectacularly diverse cast. There's a variety of queer characters, Mira is biracial and half Jewish, one character has gay dads, plus the story deals with depression and other mental health issues.
-Scenes that were silly and beautiful and magical and encompassed what it’s like to be a teen, to be damaged, to love and trust people enough to open up to them and let them into the mess of your life.
-The underlying theme that it’s okay not to be okay. You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t really have to have any of the answers, you just have to keep living.
-Unexpected sexytimes. I loved these scenes because they were kinda messy and real and made my eyes go wide like WHAT IS GOING ON IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING.

Fans of the Impossible Life made me run the gamut of emotions. It’s a bit of a mindfuck, but in the best ways. It’s bold, it’s beautiful, it’s painful, it’ll break your heart and also heal it. I love this book so much, and even though I know not everyone will feel the same, I highly recommend it. Go into it with an open heart and an open mind and no expectations, because this book will take those expectations and twist them along with your heart and mind. 

Have you read Fans of the Impossible Life? What did you think? If you haven't read it, do you plan to? Let's talk here or on Twitter!

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