I was drawn to this book for two reasons: the mention of escapology, and my love of the ‘unlikely friendship’ trope. The Art of Escaping manages to put a fresh spin on the common YA theme of escaping from your current life that feels very contemporary. The specificity of the escapology element helps with this, but I also like how this novel tries to portray high school in a more ‘realistic’ way, rather than sticking to familiar stereotypes.

The novel highlights the pressure to conform to people’s expectations in life, especially when you’re a teenager, whether you’re a high achieving student like Stella or an athlete like Will or an ‘average’ middle-of-the-class coaster like Mattie. But it also suggests that all the false fronts and personas that you project in high school don’t necessarily need to be torn down in order for you to be comfortable with who you are, because sometimes you don’t want to deal with all of the confrontations which go along with it.

I really enjoyed this book: the characters are likeable, the dialogue is snappy and funny, and there are lots of very specific references to nerd culture and people who are interested in vintage things.

I'm still thinking about the rating, it might change.

Okay, the premise was really original. I don't think I've ever read a YA about escapism, or about a teenage girl that lives a literal double life. But the execution was just... average? There was a sad backstory going on with a japanese escapist (is that how you call it lmao sorry I'm translating from spanish), but I don't think it was given enough time for me to get fully invested in it.

One of the side characters is a gay boy and has a lot of on-page time. It was a great surprise, as the gayer the merrier for me. His story was treated very respectfully, but not like the author was walking on egg shells. I wish more LGBT+ characters were treated like he was.

The acts made my anxiety S U F F E R, AND I'm claustrophobic. So maybe if you're in a extremely bad place mentally don't read this book right now, but it wasn't unbearable for me. I was just really glad I wasn't in her place.

I liked the writing!! I always appreciate a good written, easy to follow contemporary. And this was it, thankfully.

A great way of describing this book is quirky. Callahan's witty writing is to the point. Refreshingly intelligent without ever becoming preachy, soul searching but not overly sentimental. With one liners you wish you have thought of yourself, she never goes for the easy laughs but is genuinely outright funny.

Really like the chapter names in the form of Mattie vs... or Will with two Ls... and etc. Intriguing and pulling at your heart strings, are the little excerpts from the life of the famous Miyake.

The escapology lessons we're as entertaining as I hoped, but not at all as you might expect them. Full of characters with instant likeability (even those which are 'unlikeable') For me, the back and forths in the protagonists timelines were a little aggravating and maybe the tying up of loose ends at the 'finish line" a little abrupt.

This is such an honest exploration of the difference of hanging out and true friendship. Friendship that can help you grow. How we should live life to the fullest, take care of ourselves and engage in what we truly like. Be yourself, not what others think you are/should be.

The Art of Escaping: Come for the escapology, stay for the heart.

Love love love! This book captured my attention from the start, with such a different plot. I mean yes, it's kind of a coming of age story, but escapism? Cool. Maybe it's just me; I have always been fascinated with magic in all it's many forms, but something about spending a summer without ones friends but learning a skill one is passionate about is just great. I felt that the descriptions of the actual training were well done. I did find it a little hard switching between the two POV's, but not so much that I put it down.

~3.5 stars~

This was a great coming of age book. We have all these different kids who end up finding friendship in the most unlikely places/way. This book is about friendship.

Mattie is an outsider and only has one friend. She’s secretly in love with escapology but wants to do more. She has one friend, Stella, who is going away to a pre-college summer program. Since, she’s going to be alone, she decides to take things into her own hands and really get into escapology. She’s also snarky and I loved that.

Later we meet Frankie, who Stella befriends when she’s away at her pre-college program. I really liked Frankie. He was probably the most awkward but I loved how he just meshed into this group.

Will is your typical high school basketball star who has everything and a beautiful girlfriend. Except, he’s hiding a pretty big secret. He’s living a lie and really starting to unravel.

Mattie decided to go to Miyu and ask her to mentor her about escapology. It starts a bunch of actions that bring all these characters together. Will and Mattie end up making a deal but it blossoms into a friendship. This whole book is about friendship and finding yourself. I loved that there was romance but not between any of the main characters! How refreshing!! There’s a lot of different themes in this book.

Then there’s the story between Miyu and her mother Akiko. Akiko was a famous escapologist, who died at a young age, in a plane crash. Miyu is living in their house but has agoraphobia. I’m sorry but this story just crushed my soul. I don’t know if I’m in the right head space but it brought tears to my eyes. Okay, I’m definitely not in the right head space, I’m on a ton of fertility drugs. Anyways, Miyu has these journal/diary pages that kind of tell the story of her mother and herself. It was one of my favorite parts of this book.

I did have some issues with the book. There are some places where the writing wasn’t the greatest. I actually didn’t care for the dual perspective in this book. It wasn’t really needed. There were times that I would be confused about situations and find out that it was just Mattie dreaming.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and once I got into the book, I couldn’t put it down. It was fun, entertaining, yet tackled some tough issues.

I want to thank Netgalley and Amberjack Publishing for giving me an e-ARC of this book for review.

This was great! I love how for once in a YA the two MC's don't fall in love...bc one of them is GAY. I loved watching Will and how he deals with wanting to come out. He was so adorable and I was rooting for him the entire novel.!!! Mattie was interesting to read as you really get to see into her head. I really loved the friendship dynamic they had and how you see both really be there for another and build the other up positively and be so encouraging of one another. 4 stars from me!

I really enjoyed this book. At first I thought the format was weird with the texts between Mattie and Will at the very beginning but I went back and read that part again after finishing the book so now their conversation makes a lot more sense. I really learned a lot about escapologists and escapology. I loved going on Mattie’s journey with her while she learned how to perform her escape tricks. I enjoyed the parts from the miary as they called it. I was glad she made friends with Will with two L’s. I enjoyed watching their friendship bloom and her performing giving him the courage to finally come out of the closet to his family and to his girlfriend. I would love to read a sequel about their life in college and beyond.

Just reading the premise of this book was enough to grab me, but the execution was even better than expected. Callahan has crafted a novel with a very specific adolescent voice, which radiates off the page. I felt simpatico with Mattie, because each of us is a little (or a lot) like her. Her quirky fascination with escapology actually goes much deeper than that, and her connection to Akiko, a famed escapologist who has since died in a plane crash. She creates a new persona for herself, and throws herself into the practice and death-defying reality of being an escape artist. Just when she starts to feel the most herself, those around her, including her friend Will, struggle to find their true selves amidst the drama of high school life. Again, I was amazed with Callahan's ability to capture the nuances of teenage speak, and create multi-dimensional characters that readers can relate to from the get go. I really admire this book, and hope that those intrigued by the premise and cover, like I was, delve into this coming-of-age story right quick. I received this book via NetGalley, courtesy of AmberJack Publishing, in exchange for an honest review. taylorhavenholt.com/thhbooks.html

A YA novel about two teens brought together during a difficult period the summer before their senior year. Both have a secret and need a friend, and date brings them together. Centered around Mattie learning the art of escape artistry, the novel is well constructed and drew me in quickly. A one day read

This book content and concept was really good and interesting. The characters were really fun to read and it really made me sit at the edge of my seat. I loved getting to know Mattie and Will so much and seeing their friendship come to be was just amazing. Mattie is such a relatable and funny character; definitely, a character worth spending time reading, and the same goes for Will. It was also fantastic seeing a male and female character getting involved in a totally non-romantic way at all. However, this book was a tiny difficult for me to get into but maybe that's just that my motivation wasn't at its fullest when I was reading it.

Oh, how I do NOT miss high school!

I really enjoyed this book - It is so fun, and kept me entertained throughout the whole thing! There were some seriously nail-biting moments with daredevil Mattie, and I can totally see this becoming a movie that I would go see in a second!

Mattie is a high school junior who has some pretty quirky aspirations of becoming an escapologist. She's obsessed with Houdini and the like, but especially Akiko - an elite escapologist gone way before her time. But Mattie is determined to find Akiko's daughter and find out as much as she can. All the while, no-0ne in her life knows her secrets or desires to become this really cool performance artist. Not her parents or her family, or even her best, closest friend.

The story also has some snippets of Akikos past, the life she led, and the birth of her daughter, giving you some insight of the life of this mysterious performer and her equally closed-off daughter. We also meet Will, another one with some secrets, and several other really cool high school kids who are so well-developed, mature but fun. It pains me to think of how tough high school was, and how hard it is for kids just t be themselves.

The art of escapology is front and center, through training and Mattie's stage performances that literally have you holding your breath! But the art of escape is evident is other ways, with a lot of hiding from reality and fear of being found out.

This book is such a delight and hope it gets the attention it deserves.

This book is not something I would usually pick up but I was intrigued by the premise and the talk of escapology as it's just something new that i've never really seen explored in a book before, and I really enjoyed it. It's such an original novel that explores finding your passion but more importantly, finding yourself. This book is fun. It discusses lots of topics, and there are some slightly deeper discussions going on, but overall it's just a great feel-good read that I found myself fully immersed in.

Really sorry, just havent got around to reading it yet and the formatting was a bit iffy on my kindle - the synopsis sounds great though!

I honestly didn't know how much I would like this book and it was nice to be proven wrong. I could relate on so many levels. This was a lovely light heartened read. I will definitely look for more by this author in the future.

If you're looking for a lighthearted YA romance, I suggest you step away from this book. If you're however, looking for a unique novel about finding yourself, about growth of character AND teenage friendship and of course, a rad passion.. <i><b>What are you waiting for?</b></i>

<i>The Art of Escaping</i> is mainly about Mattie and Will. Two teenagers who go to the same school and yet have never actually interacted with each other, but find an unexpected friendship in one another. I'm not gonna lie, I totally expected this to become a sappy, cliché YA story with them falling in love with each other and yadda yadda yadda BUT! B u t!! I was pleasantly suprised by being proved wrong. This YA debut has zero nonsensical romance, no stupid acts of so called love but is focused on pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, being honest with yourself, finding yourself and ACCEPTING yourself. This is not your ordinary YA novel, and not only because one of the MC's passion is escapology (which is hella rad on itself) but because of all the things I've listed before and I just loved this book so much, I'm kind of left speechless.

This had the potential to be so much better than it was. in my opinion. I loved the escapology element of the novel, and although it was definitely a prominent part, it wasn't the only arc. There was Will's story arc, where he was conflicted about hiding his homosexuality. There were a lot of comparisons between Mattie hiding her escapology secret and Will hiding his homosexuality secret - these two just don't seem like they fit into the same category as each other, so their friendship was a weird one.

I did appreciate the diversity, but I think it could've been executed better. A lot of the 'acceptance' just read as quotes from Google Images which had been shoved into a novel to tell everyone that it's okay to be gay. And yes, I agree that gay is okay; what I don't agree with is the way Erin Callahan dealt with his homosexuality. She had the room to explore it further and I feel like she gave up halfway.

The characters were a little unbearable and cliche at times, and there was one instance where the chapter was repeated, just from someone else's perspective, and I feel like that was a waste of words which could've been used to explore something else (for example: Will's sexuality). I think the first person narrative was a mistake for this novel - even though we did get a lot of insight, it was very two-dimensional. A third person narrative would've been better I think - I would've liked to see more from Miyu's point of view, for example.

So, although the plot idea was great, its execution wasn't so great.

Okay, I didn't expect this book to be so great, but it just happend. I was so surprised, how this was good! Mattie is nice, sweet and brave teen, who has big dream about becoming escaper - and these part of book (learning, performing)... It's just so gripping, exciting that I can't even tear away from reading! Definitely recommend this one! Probably one of best books I've read in April!

Thanks to Netgallery and publisher for ARC! <3

This ended up being a relatively cute contemporary read that I worked my way through pretty quickly. The writing was good, the plot itself was very original, and the characters were well-developed. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it, and I think that’s because I didn’t feel invested enough in the story itself. At no point did I feel any concern that things wouldn’t turn out okay.

Maybe I’m just too distanced from high school now, but Mattie’s problems just… didn’t feel like real problems to me. She’s training to be an escapologist -- a death-defying badass -- but she’s terrified that people will find out and post something mean about her on LifeScape (this world’s version of Facebook). I feel like a story that focused more around her struggling through the training itself and less around her fears of exposure would have been more compelling for me.

There were actually more things (Mattie’s training aside) that didn’t feel fully fleshed out to me. Near the beginning, Mattie randomly has a nightmare about… LifeScape. This struck me as bizarre, but what struck me as more bizarre was that these (allegedly regular) nightmares didn’t come up again. Sure, her fear of being ridiculed on LifeScape came up a few more times, but it seemed more like an afterthought than anything else. I’m hoping this ends up more fully developed or pulled altogether from the finished copy.

The implication that Mattie’s secret double life and Will’s sexuality were on a similar level of potential life-destruction also made me uncomfortable. This is touched upon, but placing them side-by-side and making Mattie’s problems the main focus really felt to me like it was inadvertently minimizing the very real issue of coming out. I don’t think this was intentional by the author at all, but that was still the impact that I personally felt.

It also really caught me off guard and really upset me that Mattie is constantly disgusted by her brother’s inability to do anything when the narrative makes it clear that he is depressed and an alcoholic. To be fair, the author did note that the final copy clears up some ableist language, but I’m not sure how thoroughly this part of the plot was changed -- the implication is that Mattie thinks she can inspire her brother to pull himself together, or something? When it seems like he really needs help and everyone is just… letting him languish.

Besides that, there were a few other things that made me cringe. Mattie sleeps with her older brother’s drunken friend -- but she was 16 or 17 at the time, and he was in his mid-twenties. She also has hella “not like other girl” vibes. I think it’s fine to be different and quirky, but this treads dangerously on “I’m better than other girls because I do alternative things” territory. There are a couple other things, but mentioning them would be spoilers and I’m going to avoid that for now.

Overall, it was a fun, enjoyable read, but I worry about some of the content and hope things were cleaned up for the final copy.

A interesting tale using magic and escapism to discover one's true self, and the double lives people may lead. It is all about the secrets we keep and how they can reveal our truths. Secrets that are shared with select people can creating truer and deeper friendships, but can not always be a secret forever.

I really liked this book! The friendships are great and escapology is an interesting subject.