TWO INFINITE THINGS

Zubairi presents a YA novel about a teenager who doesn’t fit in and a conspiracy that turns out to be true.

In upstate New York, 16-year-old Orville Hatch just been admitted to Fox Meadow General Hospital once again. This time, it’s because he was screaming at a mouse in his school. That was, he says,because the mouse seemed to hate him—an opinion it made clear through telepathy. Despite this apparent delusion, Orville is sent back to school among his friends, who include Phoebe Kim, who’s in the marching band with him. Unlike Orville, she doesn’t hate it; indeed, she takes it very seriously, and that’s his problem, because she needs him for rides to practice. Orville may be far from popular at school, but it turns out that people than Phoebe paying attention to him—including a boy who watches Orville closely and reports on him to Orville’s father, who’s obsessed with investigating conspiracies on “a massive flowchart, where crisscrossing arrows connected them to the Illuminati, the CIA, and a chain of mattress stores.” It leaves Orville feeling more than a little lonely, but at least he’s got friends with more affectionate families. When armed men storm Orville’s high school and single him out as “one of them,” chaos ensues that has his questioning everything. Over the course of this YA thriller, the portrayals of the main characters are the greatest treat: Each is odd in their own ways, and they stand out individually but have great chemistry together and provide amusing banter, often about pop culture. Orville is a delightful and relatable main character, but what shines even more brightly is the prose, which flows effortlessly, short chapter after short chapter, and allows for an immersive experience. Its offbeat presentation results in a book that’s hard to put down.

An off-kilter and delightful tale about unearthing strange secrets.