Book Reviews: Out of My Mind by Pat White

Summary

Life is bad enough when you suffer from a traumatic brain injury after being hit by a car, you can’t remember words and are knocked down to the dummy classes at school. But when over achieving high school junior Catherine Westfield experiences post-accident visions that start to come true, she fears they’ll lock her up with the crazies if anyone discovers her secret. Her parents want her back to “normal” but Catherine isn’t sure what normal is anymore. Every time she looks into someone’s eyes her visions kick in, exposing someone’s secrets and fears, and making her feel ever more alone.
Just when Catherine thought things couldn’t get any worse, J.D. Pratt, the “bad boy” who hit her with his car, is assigned to be her note taker to fulfill his community service requirement. J.D. is keeping his own secrets about the accident and his home life. As the two teens are forced to spend time together, Catherine exposes J.D.’s secrets and he learns that she is not as strong as she makes others believe. Even though Catherine wants to hate J.D. for what he did to her and J.D. is convinced she is a “princess” who has everything, they soon realize they need each other more than they will ever admit.
When Catherine sees a vision of a school bombing while looking into the eyes of her football-hero boyfriend, she finds a reluctant ally and protector in J.D. as the two try to prevent the tragedy. In the end, both learn the value of true friendship, forgiveness and even love.

Review

The writing is okay, and the plot was interesting enough, but the character seemed so bland. I understand she was supposed to be going through 'changes' but to me it only appeared her big changes were that she preferred a black shirt over a skin-tight tank top. The plot idea is what drew me in, but it seemed to forced it wasn't really believable. The main character grew a bit, in that she started being who she wanted to be. Also, the keep describing one characters younger brother as a 'kid' but then you find out he's only 2 years younger, and really in the same age as the main characters. This could be a very good story concept, but I felt it lacked in depth and back-story.