I Crawl Through It by A.S. King is a surreal, thought-provoking exploration of trauma, identity, and resilience. The story follows four teens dealing with intense pressures and personal struggles in unconventional, mind-bending ways. King’s unique style and abstract storytelling make it a challenging yet rewarding read, perfect for fans of experimental YA fiction.

Unfortunately this book has gone in my DNF pile. It just wasn't engaging me like it would have years ago when I first requested it. My reading tastes have changed a lot over the years as I've gotten older and unfortunately some of the books requested years ago have been affected by my reading tastes and the fact that a lot of books for younger audiences haven't been grasping my attention as of late. I thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I unfortunately was not able to read this book. I was excited when ever I had chosen to download or pick this book up on Netgalley. However, time moves by so quickly and I never got to read it.

This book was STRANGE. I will say, though, that it was the perfect novel to quote and use out-of-context sentences to win a literary game at writing camp!

Smart, strange, and wildly inventive. The surrealist nature may be a tough sell for many readers but those who like weird will love this brand of weird.

Like the character in this book who calls herself Stanzi (her real name is never revealed), I am feeling a bit like a tetragametic chimera ("Somewhere in there you used to be fraternal twins. And you blended. Two into one.") Stanzi often refers to having two conflicting halves that want to do opposing things.

Half of me wants to give this book two stars, and half of me wants to give it four. So I am averaging the score to three. Half of me, despite loving weird, feels this book is too weird. The other loves how weird it is. Half of me feels guilty that after requesting the ARC of this book from Netgalley--in 2015--and being accepted, I didn't get to it until now, long after it's been released in multiple forms, including audio (supplemented by the Kindle ARC I have). Part of me is glad I listened/read AFTER I listened to/read Still Life With Tornado, which is also weird, but in a different way. I may have needed to read that one first.

If you already love A.S. King and are in the mood for some very weird weird, you could enjoy this book. But be in the right mood.

WHY DID I LISTEN TO I CRAWL THROUGH IT BY AS KING?
I Crawl Through It by A.S. King is an audiobook that I recently purchased because I had Audible credits burning a hole in my pocket. Plus, I was all, hey it’s on my Netgalley queue and this is a fast way to finally get to reading the book. Also? I just really tend to like books by A.S. King in general and I had such good luck with Glory O’Brien’s History Of The Future via audiobook.

WHAT’S THE STORY HERE?
So, I Crawl Through It is about four different teenagers, but only two of them really land in my memory two weeks after listening to this audiobook. First, there’s Gustav who is building a helicopter. Oh, and the helicopter is invisible, kind of like Wonder Woman’s. Then there’s Stanzi who has PTSD. OH oh and there’s this guy who stands in the bushes by the school and gives letters out to people. So, yeah, overall, this story is about people who are dealing with trauma.

WHAT DID I THINK OF THIS BOOK?
Literally, I retained maybe 5% of this book. I guess it was just really surreal and weird and went over my head. Maybe I am just not intelligent enough to get this book, but I’ve read other surrealist and kind of understood it, soooo. In addition, I think that listening to the audiobook has impacted my feelings about this book as well. I wonder if I would have enjoyed this book more had I actually physically read it.

HOW’S THE NARRATION?
The audiobook of I Crawl Through It is narrated by the author, A.S. King. Friends, I don’t like to think I have a bias against authors reading their own audiobooks, but wow. The narration was not good. I don’t know, I just was so bored and kept spacing out and I kept wishing that it was a professional narrating the book, not the author. Seriously, if you decide you want to read this, DO NOT get the audiobook. Get the actual physical book because the audiobook is just terrible. I think maybe someday I will try reading this book again, but via the physical book and not the audiobook.