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My comments on Chapter 3 (Reef):
> Everything in the first couple of chapters pointed to the likelihood MIXED UP will be a serious story without easy solutions for the two main characters’ consequential problems. But the premise from book previews—two schoolkids have a weird memory swap—could certainly have gone a different, zany direction. This could have been a silly and lighthearted romp through middle school for two guys who perform parlor tricks based on knowing each other’s thoughts. Chapter 3 clears up any lingering doubt when Reef solemnly worries that remembering things wrong is a sign of an impending breakdown.
> And what a troubling, upsetting, raw description of how Reef is responding to grief: “I’m not lost. It’s more like, when something really, really bad happens, you stop caring. About everything. I don’t have friends anymore. They’re still around, giving me space, waiting for me to be ready to come to them. But I’m not sure it’s ever going to happen.”
> I love the list of Reef and his mother’s pets. I have had all of them at some point: hamsters and gerbils, guinea pigs, lizards, turtles. I think the menagerie helps paint a picture of Reef’s former home life, with all the love and care attendant to so many pets, and sets up the stark contrast with his current situation without pets and without someone to love and care for him.
> @Jade, I appreciate your analogy about grief/despondency being like a capsized boat. It makes a good mental image of the helplessness and gloom Reef is feeling.
> I was M-A-D when Declan threw the book at Reef, breaking his mother’s framed photo. I could really feel the loss of something so personal, so important. I wanted to be Reef for that moment, borrowing a karate move to get back at the guy who’s tormenting him.
> But I couldn’t help being a little amused by a memory when Declan tells Reef, “You’ll pay for that.” Not funny at all, of course. It’s an ugly threat and you just know the “payment” will be steep. BUT… back in another Gordon Korman book, a sibling promises to exact revenge and that time it WAS funny. So anyone who hasn’t read A SEMESTER IN THE LIFE OF A GARBAGE BAG, put that on your to-be-read #TBR list. You’ll find out what happens when a little sister swears to get even. “Nicolette Delancey could carry a grudge into the twenty-third century and still be just as mad as if the offense had occurred yesterday.”