Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley (2016)

Ever since the fountain incident in seventh grade, Solomon hasn’t left the house. And he’s perfectly okay with that. He does all of his schoolwork online, hasn’t worn a pair of shoes in years, and spends his days watching Star Trek. Everyone from his old life has forgotten about him, except Lisa, who witnessed Sol’s fountain incident herself. She needs to know him, or rather his mental illness. In order to get into the second best psychology program in the country, she needs to write a exceptional essay about her experience with mental illness. The problem is, she doesn’t have any. Then she remembers Sol, and goes on a journey to track him down. Surprisingly, Sol agrees to hang out with her, without knowing about the essay. But, like everything else, the truth comes out, and this summer is going to be explosive. It’s still up to them whether that’s going to be good or bad thing.

Before I go into the review, I want to address an important factor about this book. Obviously, our main character Sol struggles with mental illness, specifically agoraphobia and severe panic attacks. Usually, I have a problem with books depicting mental or physical illness, because more likely than not the author hasn’t first handedly experience what they’re talking about, which can unintentionally lead them to portraying stereotypes. However, I didn’t have that problem with Highly Illogical Behavior because of the fact that John Corey Whaley has been very open about his struggle with mental illness. Yes, every case of mental illness is different, but it definitely helpful that Whaley was writing about something her personally experienced,

Now, to talk about the book itself. I absolutely loved the writing style. The whole time I was reading this book, I felt like my best friend was talking to me. It was so easy to read, and I flew through it. I really enjoyed the humor, as well as how honest the book was. The only problem I had with it at all was the pacing. There was a break in the book, where it moves about a month down from where it left off. But, I thought that pause was actually appropriate, and Whaley left enough information that the reader could assume what went on in that month. The issue I’m talking about was the ending, which felt rushed to me. Granted, this is a pretty small book, only 250 pages. Don’t get me wrong, the ending was in no way bad, but probably could’ve used another 20 pages.

Sol is one of my favorite characters ever written. I loved how comical he was but also how he was so front forward about his situation, and was really rational. I think one of the biggest misconceptions we have on mental illness it that people aren’t aware that they have it. That’s definitely not true, and Sol helps break it down. In general, I think the topic of mental health was very well handled in the story, Whenever Sol had a panic attack, the reader was right with him every step of the way. I also appreciated how it was portrayed that his mental illness was only one part of him, and that he was so much more than that. I also really like how Sol really embraced his sexuality, as well as the way Whaley wrote it. It wasn’t seen as a big deal, which it shouldn’t be, but at the same time raised important questions about how to find your sexuality.

Telling an incredible story, John Corey Whaley did a fantastic job with Highly Illogical Behavior.

4 STARS