Review: Noggin

Noggin by John Corey Whaley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 or 3 stars.

Noggin has quite the interesting premise. Guy dies from cancer, gets his head chopped off and reattached to a new body, and voila, guess who's not dead anymore. Except for that's not really what the book is actually about. That's like saying Hamlet is about King Hamlet dying. It's an event that happened before the story even starts. But, that being said, it is a main area of conflict for the book.

Noggin is really about the consequences and aftereffects of getting one's head sliced and re-glued back on five years later. If you've ever been in a coma (there's dozens of us. Dozens!) I reckon this book'd be pretty relatable to you. You know what it's like to miss large periods of time while everyone you love continued on without you. That's the big conflict for our main character Travis, the sliced and diced individual in question.

Travis died. Heart stopped, cancer-wridden body gone cold, the whole deal. But--with a catch. A catch no one really truely belived would work, but a catch none-the-less. So when he does wake up, no one is really prepared for it. Travis is left to deal with all of these implications that no one else really understands, since, you know, there arn't really that many people with severed heads walking around that would relate. And in here lies a big problem of the book for me.

Travis is so fucking stupid. Hoooly god. Once I finished the book (audiobooked it btw) the first thing I wrote in my notes is, and I quote, "Travis is such a dipshit". Thank you thank you I know my literary skills are phenomenal. He wakes up from his five-year slumber and it leaves you wondering if maybe they should have given him a new brain along with the body. (Shout out to the main homie Jeremy Pratt by the way.)

I totally get if the author was trying to make it realistic, like how dying and all that might mess you up a bit, and make you not be the most rational of people. But, FUCK, man. Too far. Like jesus Christ. I'm not going to spoil anything which is making me just remember the trainwreck that is Travis in this book. Literally, the whoooolle last half of the book I was just face palming and screaming at him for his idiocy.

Other than that, a big part of the book is actually about failed romance, if you can believe it. That was also meh. I dunno.

The whole thing was alright. I finished it a while ago now, so I don't remember too much details. I downloaded the audiobook from my library so I would have something to listen to while tanning, but I didn't end up listening to it too much. Then the two weeks borrowing window ended and I literally couldn't even continue with it. So I had to wait at least another two weeks while the next person in line listened to it before I could continue with it. Once I got it again, the only thing really motivating me to listen to it was the fact I didn't want to lose it again. And I knew I wanted to finish it, so dropping it wasn't an option. It wasn't THAT bad.

In retrospect, three stars seems kind of high but I remember enjoying it to a degree while I was reading it, so it stays at three stars. I trust my initial rating.

By the way: the audiobook was alright. The narrator seemed too old to be Travis, and I've listened to better acting in other audiobooks, so it was really meh. I'd reccomend the Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock audiobook if you want a good YA audiobook to listen to.

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