What a charming book! This should be on a teen required reading list. The writing is both vivid and unintimidating, and it cleverly ties together a beloved comic strip with a story of a young man’s mental health journey. It also offers a take on the topic of mental health that’s different from most YA novels that address it. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I was not sure how things would end. ( )

Nicely done. But maybe because I'm Susie in this story I wanted it from her perspective. Leavitt does a nice job portraying Calvin... But I didn't quite buy Susie. I think something in the format of Van Draanen's Flipped would be appropriate for this type of novel. ( )

For anyone who loves the comic strip "Calvin & Hobbes" there are plenty of nods to the strip and it's creator. Calvin, the hero of the story, is struggling with newly diagnosed mental illness and somehow the comic strip becomes the focus of how he sees himself and his connection to the world. There's real empathy for Calvin who is struggling with a brain he can't rely on. And Susie embodies true friendship in this lovely novel. ( )

He was born on the day the last strip was published. His grandpa put a stuffed tiger named Hobbes in his crib. And he even had a best friend named Susie.
Then Calvin’s mom washed Hobbes to death. Susie grew up beautiful and stopped talking to him. And Calvin pretty much forgot about the strip―until now.
Now he is seventeen years old and has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Hobbes is back, as a delusion, and Calvin can’t control him. Calvin decides that cartoonist Bill Watterson is the key to everything―if he would just make one more comic strip, but without Hobbes, Calvin would be cured.
Calvin and Susie (is she real?) and Hobbes (he can’t be real, can he?) set out on a dangerous trek across frozen Lake Erie to track down Watterson.

Calvin is a great character, and I found the depiction of schizophrenia enlightening. I don't know how accurate it is, but it felt right - the initial terror and denial, the gradual coming to terms with it. I also loved the description of frozen Lake Erie. I wonder what Bill Watterson would think of it - how weird to have your characters (and yourself) appear reincarnated in someone else's creation. ( )