[Review] Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks - 'Nathan Burgoine

Summary: Being the kid abducted by crazy old Ms. Easton when he was four permanently set Cole’s status to freak. At seventeen, his exit plan is simple: make it through the last few weeks of high school with his grades up and his head down.

When he pushes through the front door of the school and finds himself eighty kilometers away holding the door of a museum he was just thinking about, Cole faces facts: he’s either crazier than old Ms. Easton, or he just teleported.

Now every door is an accident waiting to happen—especially when Cole thinks about Malik, who, it turns out, has a glass door on his shower. When he starts seeing the same creepy people over his shoulder, no matter how far he’s gone, crushes become the least of his worries. They want him to stop, and they'll go to any length to make it happen.

Cole is running out of luck, excuses, and places to hide.

Time for a new exit plan. (Pub Date: Dec 11, 2018)

If you got tired of LGBT books about coming out... Okay, I'll resist the pun and just say this one isn't about that.

3.5.

Many years ago, Cole was abducted for a whole afternoon, even though he can't remember how that happened. Now he's again in different place, except he hasn't lost time and it's only been seconds since he left school. It seems that lately every time he walks through a door, he ends up somewhere different, and now strange people started appear in the places he goes.

I liked the characters and loved the idea but the execution could have been much better. The first problem was focus, the author undertook the job of telling a romantic story, making social criticism, talking about special powers and writing a thriller. It could have worked out but it didn't. Maybe the point was the romance but there was so much happening I didn't care much after a few chapters, the risk Cole was taking became a distraction. Except they never deepened this part of the plot enough, so it got solved in a blink and made me feel silly for worrying.

I think a good thing about the book was Cole's discovery of his powers. It was fun following his experiences. Of course, I also liked Malik, his romantic interest, as well as his friends. But because there was so much to work on, sometimes the side stories made me feel I missed something.

Summing up, it was good but it could have been much better. I recommend it as something different but not as much as it could have been.



Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.


Rating: 3 out of 5.