Noggin

National Book Award Finalist, 2014, could go on a display with books that display middle school appropriate LGBT books because of Travis' friend, Kyle.

Loved this. The sense of humor, the way the author put me in Travis's shoes - five years felt like a nap...the world was almost exactly the same, which made the differences so devastating. The respect for all the characters, even minor ones, in that they were not just one-dimensional. Really,

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really loved it!

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Travis is dying of cancer, and decides to have his head frozen in case science enables full body transplants in the future. Five years later, he is back, his head attached to his new body. The world has moved on without him, just enough to keep him off-balance and out-of-sync with his family and

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old friends.

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On the short list for the National Book Award, this YA novel is original. If you are a fan of Fault in Our Stars this is a book you should consider reading. Told in first person, it is the story of Travis whose head was frozen cryogenically and his body cremated in preparation for a time surgery

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could allow his head to be attached to a donor body. Five-years later, Travis returns to life, but it is so different. His best friend is in college. His girlfriend is engaged to another guy. He’s stuck in high school with a body that isn’t his. Creepy, funny, sad, poignant all these words can be used told describe his second life. This is an excellent choice of the National Book Award short list.

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Wonderful premise and opening chapters, but it doesn't hold together very well. Still, it reads like realistic fiction, and for people who love John Green and want something to read next, this is not a bad rec. There's mention of sex and drinking, but nothing graphic or awful -- okay for sixth

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grade on up.

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The concept for this book was interesting and it was interesting to see how each person dealt with Travis being alive again. However, the ending left you wondering where the rest of the book was as there was no closure.

This book shouldn't have worked because the premise really is ridiculous -- a teen whose body was dying was given a chance at life by having his healthy head severed from his body and preserved until a healthy donor body could be found and attached. It worked! He, his family, and his friends were

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told it would be many many years before the technology would be developed to attach the head to a donor body, but in the end it only took five years. The silliest thing to me was that his head was attached and then the medical part of the story was done -- he was sent home to live and return to school. But the brilliant side of the story was that while five years had passed, it seemed to Travis that he just woke up from a nap. Suddenly his friends were five years older, his girlfriend was engaged, and ultimately he discovered that his parents had been divorced for three years -- they tried keeping their divorce a secret from him but he found out. Suddenly this opportunity to live was confusing and maybe not 100% a good thing for him or people who loved him. By creating this nutty situation, the author gently introduces teen readers to a variety of existential questions that have no clear-cut answer.

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Travis Coates has his head surgically removed and cryogenically frozen after he dies (of leukemia at age 16). Unlike Williams, Travis is a fictional character, and five years after his death, technological advances allow doctors to attach his head to a donor body that’s taller and more muscular

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than the original. Whaley’s second novel (following his Printz-winning Where Things Come Back) is far more concerned with matters of the heart than with how head reattachment surgery would work. Travis awakens to restart where he left off—sophomore year—but everyone he knew has moved on. Best friend Kyle is struggling through college; former girlfriend Cate is engaged to someone else. As only the second cryogenics patient successfully revived, Travis is in uncharted territory; he’s “over” high school, but not ready to be anywhere else. Travis’s comic determination to turn back the hands of time and win Cate’s love is poignant and heartbreaking. His status in limbo will resonate with teens who feel the same frustration at being treated like kids and told to act like adults."

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This was definitely one of the most unusual and hard to describe books I've read.

Travis was fifteen when he contracted a deadly form of cancer. Upon his 'death' his head was removed and cryogenically frozen. Five years later it was reattached to the body of a boy who had died of a brain tumor.

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Unlike a story where the protagonist was in a coma and his friends and families paid regular visits to his bedside, Travis was gone. They had all said goodbye to him, grieved, and moved on. But when he came back he was ready to pick up just where he left off. Things just didn't work out that way.

The thing that makes Travis so likeable and not pitiful was his sense of humor. He could kid about his condition at times when everyone else was extremely uncomfortable, hiding truths from him, or just finding it hard to face him again after saying goodbye.

This book was not so much science fiction as possibly a science drama. Sense of humor without laugh out loud moments. Carrying on that is mistaken as bravery cause, what's a guy to do any way? Consequences of medical breakthroughs are not always completely thought out and are pushed out without giving thought to the individuals involved.

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Cancer threatened to take Travis Coates's life. Cryogenics saved it. At 16 years old, cancer permeated Travis's weak body. When he was offered the opportunity to volunteer for a cryogenics experiment, he quickly agreed. For Travis, it meant going to sleep one day and waking up another with a donor

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body attached to his head. For everyone else in Travis's life, he died and was gone from them for five long years. They grieved his death and continuing living. Imagine Travis's disappointment when he awakes to find his friends are now 21 years old, and his girlfriend is engaged to be married. Despite the serious nature of Travis's circumstances, he handles his second chance at life with humor and optimism.

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Noggin was fantastic and John Corey Whaley is amazeballs. I was expecting funny, and while the book has a lot of humor, it is surprisingly touching and powerful. Travis dies at age sixteen of leukemia, but he volunteers for an experimental cryogenic procedure and wakes up five years later with his

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head attached to the body of someone else (another teen with a terminal illness who donated his body to the project). Sounds crazy, right? And while it is pretty off-the-wall, it packs an emotional punch as it explores what the process is like for his parents to have their son brought back from the dead after grieving him for five years, and how painful it is for Travis to see that his friends have grown up and left him behind. It's joyful and awful and just a fabulous read.

I would recommend Noggin to fans of John Green (especially The Fault in Our Stars) and Whaley's other book, Where Things Come Back.

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I thought that this would be a comedy. The cover gives off the silly vibe and the idea of someone being cryogenically frozen always leads people to giggles. Then I started reading it and the Frankenstein's monster parallels that I had heard about made a lot more sense (beyond just the people made

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from parts bit). The bulk of the book is spent on Travis trying to adjust and find a place for himself. Everyone had 5 years without him and they are just in a very different place in life. It can be painful to read at times but in a very real way and this is where it feels like the author really succeeded. I can't imagine any of these events, reactions and feelings going down any differently.

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Decent book. Relatively clean in language. Hard to draw parallels to other similar books, but perhaps Frankenstein would be a good comparison.

I thought that this would be a comedy. The cover gives off the silly vibe and the idea of someone being cryogenically frozen always leads people to giggles. Then I started reading it and the Frankenstein's monster parallels that I had heard about made a lot more sense (beyond just the people made

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from parts bit). The bulk of the book is spent on Travis trying to adjust and find a place for himself. Everyone had 5 years without him and they are just in a very different place in life. It can be painful to read at times but in a very real way and this is where it feels like the author really succeeded. I can't imagine any of these events, reactions and feelings going down any differently.

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I thought that this would be a comedy. The cover gives off the silly vibe and the idea of someone being cryogenically frozen always leads people to giggles. Then I started reading it and the Frankenstein's monster parallels that I had heard about made a lot more sense (beyond just the people made

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from parts bit). The bulk of the book is spent on Travis trying to adjust and find a place for himself. Everyone had 5 years without him and they are just in a very different place in life. It can be painful to read at times but in a very real way and this is where it feels like the author really succeeded. I can't imagine any of these events, reactions and feelings going down any differently.

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I thought that this would be a comedy. The cover gives off the silly vibe and the idea of someone being cryogenically frozen always leads people to giggles. Then I started reading it and the Frankenstein's monster parallels that I had heard about made a lot more sense (beyond just the people made

Show More

from parts bit). The bulk of the book is spent on Travis trying to adjust and find a place for himself. Everyone had 5 years without him and they are just in a very different place in life. It can be painful to read at times but in a very real way and this is where it feels like the author really succeeded. I can't imagine any of these events, reactions and feelings going down any differently.

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A great read, albeit the slightly icky premise: modern medicine (via the Saranson Center for Life Preservation) successfully attaches a cryogenically preserved head onto another person's body and resuscitate him? It happens to Travis Coates, a sophomore in a Kansas City surburb whose body was dying

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(cancer) but agreed to be a guinea pig for the medical scientists' developing cryogenic science. Five years after his head is detached from his body, is frozen, and then brought back, attached to another young man's body, Travis has literally come back from the dead, five years later. Whaley's expert mix of scientific facts, teen life, all undergirded with both humor & empathy for all his characters makes this quirky story work. Loved it - GREAT choice for fans of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars - with a male protagonist. No wonder it was nominated for Evergreen Book Award this year.

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Interesting read. A 16 year old boy, Travis, has just awoken to find his head on another person's body. He was dying of cancer and chose to have his head cryogenically frozen. He is now alive again with his head transplanted onto the body of someone else. The book has Travis trying to get his life

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back to normal but to everyone around him he's been dead for 5 years. All of his friends are now in their twenties and Travis is still 16 without even a license to drive. Travis leans towards the selfish side but he's been through a lot. But so have those he left behind. At the end he learns to start letting go of the past and learn to live his new life.

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Interesting concept, although I have seen similar things done before in other sci-fi books. While not horribly written, I didn't really connect with the characters enough to really care about them.

Noggin is this year’s Fault in Our Stars for me. A touching, poignant cancer story with a twist. You have to suspend belief to believe that Travis’ head could be successfully transplanted onto someone else’s body but that gimmick is an amazing way to look at how we deal with grief and growing

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up.

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Originally published over at Full of Words.

I wanted to like Noggin more than I did. It has a clever premise, it’s definitely funny, and it delivers on more than one genuinely touching moment. Unfortunately, despite everything the book does right, I just wanted to wring the main character’s neck

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after a certain point. During one scene late in the book I actually grimaced in horror at his stupidity.

Travis Coates starts out with a lot of sympathetic qualities. Noggin opens as he awakens from a surgery to attach his severed head to a donor body. In his former life, Travis was a sixteen-year-old kid with inoperable cancer. When it became clear that he was going to die, he volunteered for an experimental program with a chance to save his life.

The program worked, but that catch is this: five years passed while his head was cryogenically frozen. He’s still mentally sixteen, but his friends are in college and his parents lived with the grief of his loss for years.

That mental age ends up being Travis’ biggest obstacle. Everyone else has grown up and moved on, but he’s still petulant and selfish and unwilling to let go of the past. When he discovers that his best friend and girlfriend didn’t wait around for him to come back, he proceeds to blow up their lives and friendships with his behavior.

Travis spends most of Noggin trying to win back the love of his former girlfriend, Cate, who is now five years older than him and engaged to another guy. It’s obvious from the start that Travis’ quest is a huge mistake. He’s going to fail, and when he does, he’s going to ruin his relationship with someone he claims to love.

There’s probably a way to tell this story that would make it feel like Travis and Cate are star-crossed lovers, but I never found myself sympathizing with his wish to win her back. He just seemed like a pathetic asshole. His self-delusion lasts for so long and goes to such extremes that I lost all patience for his idiocy.

Travis is exactly the sort of “nice guy” who just won’t take a hint, and the Cate is so forgiving that she just keeps giving him the benefit of the doubt. When Travis makes a completely boneheaded “grand gesture” near the end of the book, Cate actually forgives him… and then a few chapters later he ignores her feelings yet again. I groaned aloud.

Honestly, I’m not sure I believe that Travis learns anything over the course of the book. Instead, it feels like he just decides to blame everyone else for not understanding what he’s going through.

Although I might be willing to give John Corey Whaley’s books another chance, I’m glad I’m done spending time with Travis Coates.

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teen fiction. A 16 y.o.'s cryogenically-frozen head is attached to donor body, he wakes up 5 years later to find his friends are in college and his girlfriend is engaged to someone else. Really, that is all you need to say if you want to book talk this to a teen. Parental note: there is mild

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swearing in here, but it stops short of the f-bomb. Diversity points for Travis' best-friend-from-before being incidentally gay.

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For such an interesting premise, this was a remarkably boring tale.