[book-info title=”Because You’ll Never Meet Me” author=”Leah Thomas”]
Because You’ll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas is a young adult contemporary novel and tells of the pen friendship between two isolated young men, Moritz from Germany and Ollie who lives in the US. Each of the two young men has a physical ailment which limits their interaction with mainstream society. These same limitations – for Ollie an severe reaction to electricity and for Moritz a heart defect requiring an electronic pacemaker – precludes their ever meeting face to face. Their friendship develops through the letters they write to each other. The novel is written in the style of letters exchanged between the two.
I loved this book, which I listened to in audiobook format.
What I liked
The characters. I adored both Ollie and Moritz and was emotionally invested in their journeys. I was really rooting for them both. Their two differing points of view are beautifully brought out through the letters they write to each other. Each has a unique writing style which gave a wonderful insight into their characters. It is a mark of how invested I was in the two that when Moritz finally comes back into contact after an absence of several letters, I had a big smile on my face.
The friendship. The relationship between the two is wonderfully developed, starting from an initial slow building of trust to the deep bond they share. It’s clear that both of them are stronger people in the end for the friendship, which encourages them to push beyond their comfort zones.
The audio narration. Because You’ll Never Meet Me is a perfect book for the audio format given that it is written in letter format. You are hearing the characters’ words directly. There were two narrators, one for Moritz (with a gorgeous, slight German accent) and one for Ollie. Both narrators were brilliantly able to reflect their characters’ personal growth through their performances.
What I didn’t like
In all honesty, there was very little I didn’t like about Because You’ll Never Meet Me. At one point I did have concerns that Thomas was going to go for the real cliché in the connection between the boys, but she avoided that.
I gave Because You’ll Never Meet Me a well deserved four and a half stars out of five.
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