“Top-notch” —USA Today
“Illuminating” —Washington Post
“A breath of fresh air” —Entertainment Weekly
“Memorable” —People
I am a collection of oddities, a circus of neurons and electrons: my heart is the ringmaster, my soul is the trapeze artist, and the world is my audience. It sounds strange because it is, and it is, because I am strange.
After 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. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland.
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. 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.
Told in an unforgettable, kaleidoscopic voice, Mosquitoland is a modern American odyssey, as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
A Road Book Worth the Ride
By Ken C.
A good road book is 2% starting point, 3% destination, and 95% road. In MOSQUITOLAND, David Arnold pretty much sticks to these numbers. Good thing. As Bilbo Baggins would be happy to tell you, it's all in the journey (you were expecting "wrist"?). And what a journey! This book is 342 pages, yet I downed it in two days. Maybe that's no big deal, but when you consider this is more a character book than a plot book, it becomes one.So, the protagonist. She's 16-year-old Mary Iris Malone, a.k.a. Mim, and she's different. Unique. Precocious. True, naysayers might rightfully complain, "No 16-year-old girl talks and thinks like this -- like her 40-something-year-old author, I mean," but you need to get over that ipso fasto (Latin for "in a mosquito moment") or else. OK. Done. And then there are some other bits that stretch the old suspension bridge of disbelief a bit. For instance, when Mim runs away in search of real mom (leaving behind Dad and unreal stepmom), she's considered a missing child -- one who will eventually see fliers of herself. But wait. She's also carrying her cellphone. Do the letters G, P, and S mean nothing these days?All that said, it's hard to put the book down (literally or figuratively). Mim is funny, witty, full of allusions, quirky as all get-out, and, thanks be, prone to running into all sorts of characters (savory and un-) on the road from Mississippi to Cleveland. Yes, these characters give her quirkiness a run for its money, but what do you expect for a Greyhound full of strange strangers? By the final 3%, Arnold has offered up a little of everything -- happy, sad, pathos, bathos, love interest, scary moment, mishaps, perhaps, etc. Not bad for a day's work, in other words, and one of the better YAs I've read in the past few years. Is that a recommendation? Do the letters Y, E, and S mean nothing these days?
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
Beautifully written narrative. But not for children or young teens.
By S.B. Cincinnati
As a parent of three teenagers I simply cannot recommend this book to the audience to which it is being marketed. Viking has categorized this novel as a children’s book for ages 12 and up.Mr. Arnold has written a story about 16 year old Mim, who upon hearing that her mother is very ill decides to run away from her dad and stepmom and embark on a journey from Jackson, Mississippi, to Cleveland, Ohio to see her mom.The author does a fantastic job of weaving past and present narratives together. The phrasing in this book is often breathtakingly beautiful. Mim’s mental health is in question. Her dad and most recent psychiatrist believe she is mentally ill, in fact she is prescribed and takes Abilify. Her mom and Mim both question this diagnosis. When she runs away, Mim stops taking her prescription, so the reader is left wondering till the very end whether what is happening is real or not. Arnold masters the feat of maintaining just the right amount of tension between these two possible outcomes.So given that this is a well written book, why my three starts instead of five?As adult, I am not tempted to follow Mim’s footsteps, but a teenager might find her story inspiring and try to follow suit.So here are my concerns as parent:1. Shortly after leaving Mim decides to go cold turkey on her medication. Yes, there is the question whether Mim has even been properly prescribed this medication, but if a young reader is taking an anti-psychotic drug the last thing I would want a book to encourage is for a young person to decide on their own to stop taking it, as withdrawal symptoms can be very severe. Symptoms include depression, anxiety and hallucinations.2. Within my own circle of friends there have been runaway daughters who caught the local Greyhound bus and ended up in the hands of sex-traffickers. Thank goodness, they ended up being rescued by law enforcement, but not before some terrible things happened to them. Therefore, I really have issues with a book where a teenage girl runs away on a Greyhound and later teams up with an adult male and remains relatively safe.3. Speaking of the adult male, about half way through the book 16 year old Mim befriends 21 year old Beck, along with a mentally challenged teen named Walt. Mim totally crushes on Beck and decides that she trusts him enough to travel in a car with him and Walt. Now, Beck turns out to be a stand-up guy, which is good for Mim, but paints a naïve picture for a pre-teen and young teen reader.4. The language. I am not sure when it became okay to use the f-word multiple times in a children’s book, but this is the second children’s book that I have read recently where the f-word or a variation thereof is peppered throughout the book. I would have thought this would have automatically changed the category to YA or adult. (16 or 17 years old and up)This book touches a lot of heavy subject matter, including: suicide, mental-illness, adultery, divorce, sexual assault, the rape of a child, homosexuality (The derogatory terms used by some teens describing a gay person are highly offensive), death, treatment of those with mental challenges. The breadth of subject matter is another reason I think this book is more appropriate for a much older audience..
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
You NEED To Meet Mim!
By J. L. Bennett
At a glance review:Mosquitoland was just delightfully offbeat in the most charming of ways. Mim is a heroine wherein no adjectives can quite pin down the essence of Mim. She will test your patience but you cannot help rooting for her on her journey. And the writing?! It made me up my dog-earring game! Gut-bustingly funny at times, punches you in the gut at other times. David Arnold is a brilliant author who DEFINITELY brought out the big guns with his refreshing and vibrant debut. What next, David, WHAT NEXT? I cannot wait to see what else he can do.Some more detailed thoughts on what I loved about this book:It’s one of those one in a million kinds of books. The kind of book that doesn’t FEEL like anything else you’ve ever read. I really have a hard time comparing it to anything I’ve ever read before, truly. I love experiences like that.Here’s what I loved about it:1. ROAD TRIP: I’ve read lots of road trip books but none quite like this. Mim truly goes on quite the adventure as she leaves Mississippi to get to her mom in Ohio. It was like a road trip hopped up on extra shenanigans. I don’t want to slip in too many of the situations she finds herself in but it was quite the wild ride. I kept turning the pages like WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT?!2. MIM: You guys, YOU NEED TO MEET MIM. There’s no one way to describe Mim — I’d say quirky or eccentric but I’m not sure either of those words fully encompass Mim’s personality. I could tell you about her personality or the things she likes but it doesn’t present the whole picture. She’s Mim. That’s the only way you can describe her. MIM. I’ll assert it as an adjective. Mim in all her Mimness. That’s all I can say. And when you meet her you will know what I mean. She’s a voice that echos louder than most in the recesses of my readerly mind. She made me snort-laugh unattractively. She made me cry inconsolably. She made me want to shake her but then hug her at the same time. She made me think. She seeks answers and her journey to find them is one you don’t want to miss as she really has to confront some tough things in her past and present. I could go on and on about Mim and her growth and how much of an amazing heroine she is but the takeaway here is….THERE WILL NOT BE ANOTHER VOICE LIKE MIM. She’s an anomaly (but, like, not written in that annoying way in which the author is like LOOK AT MY CHARACTER ISN’T SHE SO QUIRKY AND DIFFERENT). She’s Mim through and through.3. The writing: There was something so hypnotizing with David Arnold’s writing. The way this story was told was just so VIBRANT. I don’t know how to explain it other than that. It was dream-like. Surreal. Half the time I was like “IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING?” or is it one beautifully constructed hallucination?? Or maybe it’s a movie reel in my mind?? It was just told in a different way. He spins some sentences/thoughts that just make you pause before moving on. I dog-earred the crap out of this book for many reasons — profundity, humor, a certain turn of phrase that delighted the cockles of my heart, a heart-warming moment, etc. I also love how the story is revealed with the trip narration and then with letters to Iz. We get slivers of the past that has brought her here mixed with this surreal road trip. Also? How David Arnold explored mental illness in a powerful way. I don’t want to say too much on it because I want people to experience it purely how I did.4. The cast of characters she meets along the way: There were sooo many excellent characters she crosses paths with who change her and help her along her journey. Every character she crosses paths with come to life so vibrantly in a way that is just SO impressive.
