The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun Hutchinson 5/5 stars

*Note: I received this book in exchange for an honest review*

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley was a truly fantastic book! I loved every minute of reading it, which, sadly, wasn't very long because I was so interested!  It was a whirlwind of love and hate, joy and despair, and life and death.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it and hope you will give yourself the opportunity that is this book (i.e. you should read it).

The cover:

The Cover:

Andrew (Drew) is on the cover.  I like this cover, for some reason, but there really isn't much to say about it, though it works.  I'm not even annoyed by the "A Novel".  (That's a pet peeve of mine.  I don't get the need for clarification.)

My Description:

Drew is a teenager who lives at the hospital, though he's not a patient.  He works in the cafeteria and never leaves, sleeping in an abandoned wing of the hospital.  He entertains himself by writing a comic book, Patient F, and through the friends he's made at the hospital, such as a few kids with cancer and the ER nurses.  Drew won't let anyone know him too well, otherwise they might notice that he's not who he says he is.  

However, when a boy, Rusty, is brought into the emergency room after being burned alive, Drew finds himself wanting to help the other boy in any way that he can, and he slowly realizes that he can't stay in the hospital forever.

(I thought that the official description had a few too many minor spoilers in it, but if you want to read it... Link to Official Description )

My Review:

I really like The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley, but I have to warn you that it is depressing.  It isn't a book that entirely focuses on tragedy.  There are points of pure happiness, but the sad moments, while less in number than you would anticipate, can be pretty sad.  (I imagine you picked that up from the title, but one can never be too careful.)  Aside from the tragedies, this book was actually really sweet.  There were multiple romances occurring in the hospital that were insanely cute at certain points.

I loved all of the characters.  There weren't just unique, but they were like-able!  I felt every character's pain and joy like it was my own.  They were complex and very, very complicated.  They also had this amazing thing, character development! Drew ended the book as a completely different person than he was at the beginning.  Even smaller characters, like Drew's boss, Arnold, had extreme character growth over the course of the novel.

The plot was amazing.  It kept me in complete suspense.  Shaun Hutchinson kept just the right amount of details from the reader to make the characters' backstories a mystery that was worth solving.  

At the end of every couple of chapters was a one or two page excerpt from Drew's Patient F comic book.  I really enjoyed this small aspect, as the life of Patient F mirrored Drew's life perfectly and added to the experience of reading this book. Still, there was not too many comic book panels, so it did not detract from the story.  (It was done in a way that kind of reminds me of Winger by Andrew Smith, it supplemented the story.) 

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley was both sweet and heartbreaking, but it was mainly wonderful.  I would highly recommend it! To be warned, it does contain some adult themes such as death, so don't give it to your seven year old niece, but for the rest of you, I strongly recommend that you try to read The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley.  It was a really great read.

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun Hutchinson comes out January 20, 2015

Phrases (I can't decide):

Andrew. Andy or Drew. Whatever.

AND

Death likes scrambled eggs