Book Review: "Mosquitoland" - More Than a Road Trip

Mosquitoland by David Arnold

Rating: 5/5

Genre(s): Young Adult, Contemporary, Mental Health/Illness, Coming of Age, Road Trip

Synopsis: Mim’s dad has remarried and Mim just learned the secret that her mother is sick. So what’s a teenager to do in this situation? Board a bus from Mississippi to Ohio, meet some people along the way, and get to Mom before Labor Day.

Review: Hands down…one of my favorite books that I’ve read in 2022. When I first picked up this book in my local bookstore, I thought it seemed interesting and a little out of the box of what I usually read. So, I thought I would give it a chance. And this novel exceeded all expectations I had.

The plot was well-paced and hooked my interest from the start. All of the characters are well-developed, unique, and relatable. When you break it down, this whole novel is just about a road trip, but it’s about so much more too. It’s about grief, fear, loss, independence, love, and, most importantly, friendship. Mim starts out her journey alone, but she ends up discovering more about herself and the importance of trusting others and not closing herself off to the world. There are so many great messages that Arnold packs into this novel. And it was funny! Being humorous in writing is a hard skill to acquire, in personal experience, so the fact that this novel deals with such important issues in a relatively funny way is refreshing and is partly why this novel is so amazing!

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This Book Review was originally posted on Instagram on August 14, 2022.