New Book Alert Two Like Me and You by Chad Alan Gibbs; Funny and Touching YA Novel About Young and Old Loves and Fame
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book with an upside down image
Spoilers: In this age of disposable fame when YouTube speeds up the fifteen minutes of Fame predicted by Andy Warhol, it can be rather discombobulating when someone you know gets that fame. Suddenly, the person that used to be just the average Joe or Josephine is now the subject of BuzzFeed, YouTube, TMZ, and every social media account, every gossip rag, and entertainment show. Whether that person was your friend, relative, or lover you might be proud, but mostly just confused, jealous, left out, think better them than me, or wonder why that person. What was so special about them and not you?
That is the situation faced by Edwin Green, the protagonist of Two Like Me and You, Chad Alan Gibbs' hilarious and touching YA Novel. Edwin's former girlfriend, Sadie Evans has acquired accidental fame and has taken that to new heights as an actress and pop singer, both of questionable talent. Edwin has to hear about his now famous girlfriend from everyone: his classmates, teachers, his mother and stepfather, the media. Only his best friend tries not to mention her, but sometimes the temptation is too great. The only thing that he wants these days is to become famous so he can catch the eye once more of Sadie and be back in her loving arms once more.
However, in school he is partnered up with Parker Haddaway, a new girl who is Sadie and Edwin's polar opposite in many ways. She is secretive and mysterious, and prefers to keep to herself. She also arouses the interest and speculation of the student body who wonder about her story. Is she a foster child who lived with a succession of aunts? Is she a run away living by herself? Is she a lesbian or asexual? Is she not a teenager but an adult undercover agent posing as a teenage student to expose some drug ring? Either way, she's not talking and they can't find out any information. Why (gasp), she barely has a social media presence and what they can find is contradictory at best.
Anyway, Parker and Edwin are paired up during an assignment to interview someone who lived during WWII. Parker has the perfect subject, Garland Lenox, a 90ish resident of Morning Arbor Nursing Home, where Parker is a frequent visitor. Garland captivates the duo with his tales mostly tall like how he won bronze in the 1944 Olympics (even though there weren't any Olympics that year.). Usually, he tells those stories with repeating his frequent catchphrase, "You just can't make s#$t like this up."
However, he also tells them the truth like how he was raised in a doomsday cult and volunteered to fight in the War to get away from the weird doomsday preppers and see a world in which he had been cut off, as much as to serve his country. He also speaks romantically about Madeleine, his lost love with whom he has reason to suspect may still be alive. He longs to go to France to be reunited with her, but he needs some help. Parker is willing to go for reasons that are known only to her, but neither she nor Garland can drive or speak French. If only Parker and Garland knew someone who could do both, wants to be famous, and is extremely gullible.
Well, it takes several chapters to convince him, but Edwin finally agrees and the next thing Edwin knows, the Three Intergenerational Stooges are on a plane heading for Paris.
There are plenty of laugh out loud moments such as when Edwin compares the sudden Paris trip as the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. "New Coke, Jar Jar Binks, only having twenty lifeboats on the Titanic all look brilliant compared to this." The chapter titles add to the humor by referring to Edwin as "Our hero" such as "In which our hero says no a dozen times, before finally saying maybe."
Another moment occurs when Parker first captivates Edwin's interest by quoting lines from that noted Romantic poet….Sir Mix-a-Lot. Sharing a mutual love of old school rap causes the two kids to bond and develop into a friendship then romance
The trip to France takes on mostly farcical proportions that are pretty unbelievable, probably so no impressionable youngsters reading can imitate this ill-advised journey and leave Gibbs personally responsible. The trio create an elaborate lie in which they tell the nursing home one thing, but tell their families and the school something else. Edwin also foolishly gives his own email address when pretending to be Garland's lawyer. (Tip for future reference: not many lawyers would have the email address ladiessluvcoolE.) There is also some comic suspense when Parker accidentally shoots a French police officer and Garland accidentally causes the police car to explode. It's almost like a list of what not to do during such a caper.
Of course their trip does not go unnoticed. From when they are on the plane, the word is out about the escapees. Their cell phones are jam packed with text messages from authority figures, classmates who want to know the news, Garland's lawyer who thinks that the kids kid (or adult)napped his client, and Edwin's mother and stepfather who threaten to ground Edwin for the rest of his life. The longer they stay away, the more famous their story becomes. They acquire a presence on social media and become YouTube celebrities. Even Anderson Cooper weighs in on this odd story.
So Edwin gets the fame he longs for and naturally the attention of Sadie.
While there are plenty of humor, there is plenty of warmth especially when the truths to the characters's stories are revealed. Edwin learns about Parker's past and also learns from her that sometimes fame has negative consequences, especially when it's a fame that one didn't ask for. Edwin also has a dramatic confrontation with Sadie when he learns that she is using his new found celebrity to continue hers and what shallow monsters that she and her family have become because of all the attention.
Some of the more moving events occur when we learn about Garland and Madeleine's romance. Garland wants to gain some closure and give his story a finishing period. The moments where the kids and then he learn what happened to Madeleine carry the real heart of the book and injects some warmth to these characters that are already made likeable by their goofy hijinks
Two Like Me and You is a breezy, fun, laughable, and warm book that celebrates both young and old love. Garland is right you not only cannot make s$#t like this up, but you can't stop laughing along with it either.
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