Gold
Faceless by Alyssa Sheinmel is awarded my Gold Medal in the Booklympics. It creates emotion in the reader that you didn’t quite know was there. So clearly as a reader, unless you’ve had a face transplant, you can’t relate to Maisie who is a face transplant patient, right? Wrong! I felt so closely related to the main character in so many ways. Her relationship breaks down and she comes to terms with that. Her emotions are raw and real and definitely something most readers can relate to. Sheinmel makes it so Maisie, a ‘miracle’ medical case, still faces normal problems such as breaking up with her boyfriend. I found this important to the book as where she’s in such a unique position, it could’ve been difficult to enjoy reading it without some regular storylines.
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Silver
Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project has won the silver medal. The different types of relationships are explored as you see the protagonists begin their relationship, the platonic relationship between Don and his best friend Gene, as well as the marriage between Gene and his wife. There is a lot of humour in this novel as it is an unconventional love story, because Don tries to find a wife using a lengthy questionnaire. Rosie also becomes part of Don’s Wife Project, and then he gets drawn into Rosie’s Father Project, trying to discover who her real father is after she is left with uncertainty by her late mother. I found this to be a truly gripping story but I did I feel as if something was missing when I had finished it.
Bronze
Coming a respectable third place, is Nicola Yoon’s Everything Everything. This is another novel that has a romantic relationship with a twist. Maddy cannot leave the house due to her health and she falls in love with the boy next door, quite literally. Olly is a complete darling and respects her completely. With some interference by Maddy’s mother and her nurse, things get complicated between them. It has quite an unpredictable ending and kept me guessing the entire way through. Yoon has another novel coming out at the end of 2016 so keep your eyes peeled for that!
Would you give these books the same medals? What books would earn what place on the podium in your ‘Booklympics’? Let us know in the comments!
