Nowhere Near You by Leah Thomas (review)

[Correction]

In this sequel to You’ll Never Meet Me (BCCB 10/15), Ollie and Moritz are still pen pals, still kept apart by the fact that Ollie zaps out electricity and Moritz wears a pacemaker, and still trying to understand their strange lives. Ollie, who willingly dons protective gear to keep himself (for the most part) from shorting out whole towns or hurting others, is on a crusade to meet other kids who have also been scientifically tampered with. Moritz is less interested in revisiting anything his brilliant but horrible scientist mother may have had a part in creating, focusing instead on art school, romance, and Ollie. This is a dark novel, no matter whose letters one is reading at any given moment, but an unbreakable thread of hope, a sense of immortality and resilience these teens have despite crippling odds against them, keeps the tone thoughtful and even wry. Ollie’s bouncy exuberance takes a heavy hit, as does Moritz’ jaded distance, landing both closer to one another as they see even more clearly spots where they overlap, in spite of all their perceived differences. This brilliant follow-up to a clever and unexpected novel does exactly what it should in keeping the same epistolary format but taking these two unforgettable characters way out of their comfort zones and toward lives that are lived rather than waited out, and the result is powerful stuff indeed.