Furthermore Review

Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi (416 pages)
Date Read: 14 August 2016
My Rating: 4.75 Stars

Synopsis:

The bestselling author of the Shatter Me series takes readers beyond the limits of their imagination in this captivating new middle grade adventure where color is currency, adventure is inevitable, and friendship is found in the most unexpected places.

There are only three things that matter to twelve-year-old Alice Alexis Queensmeadow: Mother, who wouldn't miss her; magic and color, which seem to elude her; and Father, who always loved her. The day Father disappears from Ferenwood he takes nothing but a ruler with him. But it's been almost three years since then, and Alice is determined to find him. She loves her father even more than she loves adventure, and she's about to embark on one to find the other.

But bringing Father home is no small matter. In order to find him she'll have to travel through the mythical, dangerous land of Furthermore, where down can be up, paper is alive, and left can be both right and very, very wrong. Her only companion is a boy named Oliver whose own magical ability is based in lies and deceit--and with a liar by her side in a land where nothing is as it seems, it will take all of Alice's wits (and every limb she's got) to find Father and return home to Ferenwood in one piece. On her quest to find Father, Alice must first find herself--and hold fast to the magic of love in the face of loss.

My Review:

Okay, so I got this book as an ARC at Yallwest back in May, so I finally decided to read it because it comes out later this month!! This is my second book in the 10 books in 10 days challenge!!

I love that Tahereh Mafi wrote a middle grade book. I don't often read this age group, but because it was hers, I went for it and oh my goodness I was not disappointed. Even though it's a middle grade book, maybe even because of it, the story is able to get super deep and promotes the idea that you are enough as you are, no matter what you look like or what you have. I think that's super important for students during this time.

It is amazing how much one person's writing style is able to change based on the story they are telling. Tahereh, I feel, is very much a method writer in the fact that she really inhabits the characters and their worlds as she is writing them. I really appreciate that as a reader because it makes the stories more immersive and entertaining!!

I loved the nonsensicalness of the story. It is very reminiscent of Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland, but it doesn't blatantly copy what he wrote. While they both have lands in which nonsense rules, they are still different beings.

Alice is so freaking sassy and I love it. The insults she throws throughout the story are hilarious, my favorite being "overgrown pineapple" because why not?

Also, the author asides are almost at a Lemony Snicket level of commentary. And the chapter breaks are so random, but I love them. There are so many interjections that are hilarious.

I love this adventure story so much! It focuses a lot of the growth of friendships and of the characters themselves which, again, is something I think middle grade readers need to see more of.

This book is actually very emotions as well! It shows a child's view of her parents and that everyone, even parents, can make mistakes and should be able to apologize for those mistakes. The characters are very well written and are amazingly deep. I haven't read many middle grade novels recently, but this one seems especially awesome. It shows people as having  flaws and making bad decisions.

I recommend that everyone reads this at some point because it is just so freaking amazing and so quotable!!

I'm going to post some of my favorite quotes after this, so if you don't want to read them, stop here!!

"Love had made her fearless, wasn't it strange? It was so much easier to fight for another than it was to fight for oneself." (p144)

"'And his sentence was very long,' said Oliver.' 'Oh yes, it was made up of many words!'" (p231) (This one made me cackle)

"He never let her win, never let her convince him she was right. He fought harder for her than she ever fought for herself." (p250)

"This new Alice was confident and bold; she was articulate and passionate; she had become the kind of person who'd lived through hardship and survived with grace." (p382)

"The simple truth was that Alice would always be different-but to be different was to be extraordinary, and to be extraordinary was an adventure. It no longer mattered how the world saw her; what mattered was how Alice saw herself." (p385)