Book Review: Noggin by John Corey Whaley

Most people, teens especially, are uncomfortable with their bodies. They're just growing into them, and they are uncomfortable in their own skin. John Cory Whaley's Noggin takes that concept to another level when Sixteen year old Travis Coates wakes up from a five-year cryogenic sleep to find his head re-attached to someone else's body.

Travis agreed to the outlandish idea of having his head chopped off and frozen only as a last resort; he was out of options battling cancer and it was either die soon or let doctors put his head into the freezer in the hopes of bringing him back when a cure was available. 

In Travis's timeline, he's only been gone a day. But the rest of the world has moved on for five years. Travis's gay best friend, who came out on Travis's deathbed, is dating women and is 21 years old. Travis's girlfriend is now engaged to an older man. And Travis's parents are acting very strange around each other as well. 

Add to that Travis gets to go back to his old high school as the only 21 year old high school underclassman. The media is hounding him, as he is only the second person to come back from cryogenic re-animation. Religious fanatics are calling him the second coming of Jesus, or the spawn of Satan. 24 hour news channels talk endlessly about him. Even his hometown-- Kansas City, Missouri, has changed during his absence, with references to new buildings like the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Perhaps most strange if all: everyone wants to see the scar around his neck. 

Despite the seemingly outlandish premise-- chopping off and reattaching a head-- Noggin reads more like a John Green or Rainbow Rowell novel than a sci-fi or fantasy genre novel. The characters are well-rounded and heartfelt. Everyone has their own issues with having said their goodbyes and then trying to welcome Travis back. It's very easy for readers to empathize with the characters, from Travis's girlfriend who spent years mourning his loss before moving on, to his best friend who went back into the closet-- and locked the door-- out of fear of being found out. 

And most of all, we feel for Travis. He acknowledges that he definitely traded up with his new body; he's much more athletic than he's ever been. But his head is still 16, as are his emotions, and he clings to the juvenile hope that he can get his girlfriend back by putting a Peter Gabriel song on the boom box and holding it over his head while standing in her yard. Or whatever the modern equivalent of that might be. Like a John Green novel, Noggin takes a look at real life and helps you look past the awkwardness and the pain and confusion and helps you see that while there may be no definite plan, there is life, and that's enough of an adventure for anyone. 

I highly recommend Noggin for 8th grade and up. Buy a few copies for your library and add the book to a display with Rainbow Rowell and John Green, and this book will take on a life of its own.