Review: Because You’ll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas

Summary: 

In a stunning literary debut, two boys on opposite ends of the world begin an unlikely friendship that will change their lives forever.

Ollie and Moritz are best friends, but they can never meet. Ollie is allergic to electricity. Contact with it causes debilitating seizures. Moritz’s weak heart is kept pumping by an electronic pacemaker. If they ever did meet, Ollie would seize. But Moritz would die without his pacemaker. Both hermits from society, the boys develop a fierce bond through letters that become a lifeline during dark times—as Ollie loses his only friend, Liz, to the normalcy of high school and Moritz deals with a bully set on destroying him.

Review: 

“Let me tell you a wondrous story. For once, let me be the shining one. It is springtime. Birds are noisiest now. I can almost see the shape of the sky.”

Probably the most beautiful book I have read in a while. This is not a drill. 
Oliver and Moritz are pen pals because due to circumstances of birth they can never meet each other, however they are the bestest of friends. The premise is simple, and one might think they story will be too, just the life of two kids told through letters. Well, you are wrong. It is much more. It does start as a simple story but it guides you through a series of twists and turns that you are not expecting. The story, as you find out in the second part of the book is darker and more complicated that you could ever imagine at first. If we should classify this book it could be said to be a coming-of-age sci-fi novel (maybe?) It definitely has fantastic elements that won’t feature in normal coming of age stories because they aren’t realistic. However, this elements do not make you in anyway disconnect from the story, I would even venture to say that it makes you more aware of the characters andtheir struggles.

The story is entirely narrated in letter format (with some dialogue liscence) and the character development is perfectly executed throughout the book in how the pace and tone of the letters change through each situation Moritz and Ollie go through.

The second book of this duology comes out February 2017, after the ending of this book leaves us hanging a bit and wondering what the future holds for our dear boys (my kids, I have adopted them). I can’t wait to read it, and trust me on this,  if you are only going to read a book this month, let it be this one.

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