Review: The A to Z of You and Me by James Hannah

Title: The A to Z of You and Me
Author: James Hannah
Format: ARC
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Publish Date: May 3, 2016
Source: Publisher

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "He has all kinds of everyday joy in his life -- he's young, he's in love, he has friends who promise to stand by him if life ever goes wrong.

Then one day, life does go wrong.

He makes a mistake, and it's big and unforgiveable. Now time is running out, and his life is falling apart. But he's going to put it back together again. His own way.

This is a story about how far love must stretch to gather a life in pieces -- and about how a strong friendship never dies."

My Two Cents: 

"The A to Z of You and Me" is the story of Ivo, a guy who is in hospice and is looking over his life. He has a lot of time to think and he finds himself dwelling on the past, like so many of us would do when confronted with our own mortality. He is playing the alphabet game where he goes through the alphabet thinking of many different memories, many of them related to Mia, who is the proverbial one that got away.

Ivo, our main character, leads us through his life. Because the book is told from his perspective, we get to know him the best. The secondary characters were great as well. I especially like Sheila, Ivo's hospice nurse. She is so amazing to him throughout the book and I loved seeing how she tries to help him as he goes through all he goes through this book.

The best feature of this book is it's very original telling. Ivo's alphabet game is imaginative and a great way of showing us a lot of different aspects of his life. We get to know him both as a child and a young adult. The alphabet game forces Ivo to think of the important things that got him to where he is now. They're important moments in order to understand who he is as a person and how he interacts the way that he does with the other characters in this book. The fact that the alphabet game does not go chronologically was a little confusing because it means we are flashing through different time periods and it is up to the reader to put together the pieces. This had me a little bit confused and flipping back and forth throughout the book to make sure I was remembering everything correctly, which took me out of the book a little bit. Overall, this was a solid, inventive read.