Independent Reading Level: Grades 5-9
Awards: ALA Rainbow Book List (2018), Vermont Golden Dome Book Award (Nominee – 2019)

I really enjoyed this because the voices of the characters pulled me in in a way I didn't expect. I found fault with a few things, and was very annoyed that Felix's dad was described as babysitting him when the accident occured - dad's aren't babysitters of their own children - but I enjoyed the funny and gentle exchanges between Felix and Zyx so much that their dialogue carried me through the story. ( )

Children's middlegrade/LGBTQ fiction. This is sort of like Wonder (sweet likeable main character who is ostracized for his differences), except with all sorts of LGBTQ diversity. Felix is gay, the 4th-dimensional alien Zyx who is fused to his body is genderless, Felix' Grandy is gender-inclusive (regularly switching between Vern, Vera, and something in between within the course of each week and using the pronouns Vo, Vem, Veir), Felix' widowed mother dates both women and men, and Felix makes a friend who turns out to be a trans male. Incidentally, Felix' crush is of mixed race.

storywise, the plot moves along quickly and is pretty satisfying. ( )

This moved too slowly, and the overabundance of self-conscious quirk will be too much for most of my students. The premise sounds funny and is easy to sell to kids, but it never realizes its promise. Most similar in tone to Dan Gemeinhart's The Honest Truth: a kid's journey to deal with their possible impending mortality. ( )

When Felix Yz was a little boy, he was too close to his dad’s experiment and was accidentally paired with an alien who is named Zyx. He is going to have a procedure done to separate him and Zyx forever, because if they don’t get separated they will die. He writes about every day counting down to Zero Day, which is the day that he will have the procedure done, and Zyx uses Felix’s hands to say stuff. Felix became friends with a boy at his school named Hector. His mom’s boyfriend showed him online chess and Zyx loved it! He was faster than anyone in the world! Before Zero Day, Felix got scared and he ran away from home, he hopped onto a train and rode for a while before hopping off at a stop. He found a man that took him to a house where really nice people and they let them stay with them. He ended up going back to his family and Zero day arrived! On Zero Day, he was put into a machine that zapped him so that his heart stopped, and then it zapped him again and restarted his heart again. He was separated from Zyx and lived through the process!

I thought this book was ok. It was a little bit inappropriate at times, but it was mostly good. I liked the format that it was made in, where it was his own private blog and that you could hear what Zyx had to say. It was interesting to hear from someone that had been paired with an alien. I gave it four stars, because it was kind of boring at times. I would recommend this book to those that enjoy fiction. The part that the alien was kind of weird because it didn’t make much sense at some points. This book was fine overall. ( )