Review: The Museum of Intangible Things by Wendy Wunder

Title: The Museum of Intangible Things

Author: Wendy Wunder

Publisher: Penguin Canada
Publication date: April 10, 2014

Genre(s): Young Adult (Contemporary)

Source: Publisher

Format: ARC

Pages: 304

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Hannah and Zoe haven't had much in their lives, but they've always had each other. So when Zoe tells Hannah she needs to get out of their down-and-out New Jersey town, they pile into Hannah's beat-up old Le Mans and head west, putting everything—their deadbeat parents, their disappointing love lives, their inevitable enrollment at community college—behind them.

As they chase storms and make new friends, Zoe tells Hannah she wants more for her. She wants her to live bigger, dream grander, aim higher. And so Zoe begins teaching Hannah all about life's intangible things, concepts sadly missing from her existence—things like audacity,insouciance, karma, and even happiness.

I had really high hopes for The Museum of Intangible Things because I loved Wendy Wunder's previous novel, The Probability of Miracles (Review here). First of all, she is blessed with beautiful book covers as well as very memorable book titles! The Museum of Intangible Things first got my attention because of the road trip aspect. You guys know how much I love road trips in my books! also, it is a best friend novel and I sometimes love my friendship books, void of romance. Overall, I did enjoy this book but I did have a couple of issues with it that didn't allow me to enjoy this novel as much as her previous one. 

This book fails to mention something very important, that it deals with a psychological disorder. One of the friends, Zoe, has bipolar syndrome. The road trip.. wasn't a fun road trip, it was about doing whatever Zoe wanted, and Hannah following her and hoping she doesn't drive off the edge this time. I do like her loyalty to her best friend, it is something I admire very much, but I hoped the way everything was handled had been handled differently. Also, the road trip? took over 100 pages for it to happen. You guys know how much I dislike when the synopsis mentions something that doesn't happen immediately in the book. I would have preferred not knowing they'll be going on a road trip because I was waiting for it as soon as I started reading. Also, the writing made me a bit uncomfortable, maybe it was how true it was to what teenagers think and go through nowadays but I just disliked the way these characters talked and thought.. it made me like them a bit less (am I making sense) but maybe this is just a case of "it's not you, it's me" where the author purposely did this to not romanticize teens' lives because I know we all want our YA characters to live happily ever after. 

However there are things I highly enjoyed in this novel and the first is the labeling of every chapter. Through the road trip, Zoe is teaching Hannah to ease up on life and to, for once, think about herself instead of her sorry excuse of a dad and barely present mother. I really liked the connection between the two girls and how even in the middle of all the crap they're going through, they still stuck by each other and wanted the best for each other (yes, even Zoe who tends to get her way with things). It was basically two girls against the world and it was refreshing to read YA contemporary novel with minimal romance (yes, there is a very diluted romance in there). I would definitely recommend it to contemporary fans who want to try something different.

Check out my mini video review of The Museum of Intangible Things along with Better Off Friends by Elizabeth Eulberg