The Impossibility of Us by Katy Upperman

I was quite surprised by this book. Katy Upperman is a newer author, but this book of hers was wonderful!

The Impossibility of Us is a romance book, but there is the added element of diversity in it as well and I absolutely loved that. So the two main characters are Elise and Mati. Elise has just moved to a new town the summer before her senior year in high school. Mati is also in a new town, but is just visiting. His father, who has cancer, has been accepted into a clinical trial for a drug to help him overcome the disease. The two of them meet by chance and develop a friendship that turns into more despite the thoughts and feelings of the people around them.

A little more background. Elise is the younger of two. Her brother had been killed in Afghanistan a few years before the move. The move is to help her widowed sister in law and niece who have been struggling since his death. Elise and her brother were very close, so her death was very hard on her, but she carried with her a lot of what he taught her. We will get to examples of that in a moment.

Mati is visiting from Afghanistan because of his father's illness. When we first meet him, he hates being in the United States. He and his family are called terrible names. He is actually physically assaulted by a group of men at a convenience store at one point during the story. But, everything changes when he meets Elise.

Yes, Elise does react a little violently when she finds out that Mati is from Afghanistan, but the shock wears off and she remembers all of the things her brother and her had discussed before he died. He was the kind of guy to give a homeless man the extra sandwich he bought while he was at lunch that day. Her brother believed in the good that he was doing in Afghanistan, even if his mother and wife did not. He was helping people and once Elise remembered that, she opened up to Mati and their relationship flourished despite the difficulties both of their families gave them.

The other reason I loved this book was because of the way the chapters were laid out. Elise's chapters were in prose or paragraph form while Mati's were in verse. Mati's chapters may be shorter than Elise's, but they say so much. The verses that are written are very visual and so beautiful. I am normally very picky about books that do this, but it is so wonderfully done that I looked forward to each chapter from Mati's point of view instead of dreading it like I have with past books that had this format.

All in all, I thought this book was very well written. Sometimes, with newer authors, it takes a few books for the writing to mature, but this one hit the spot for me right off the bat. I have actually requested Kissing Max Holden, Upperman's debut novel, in hopes that it is just as good (fingers crossed)!