Obstacles by Chris Reardon: Alcott is a doctor providing live-in care for a terminally ill boy to whom he forms a deep attachment. When he is given the opportunity to save the boy’s life in exchange for his own, he accepts and is then whisked to a fantasy realm where he and others in his same situation must pass a certain number of challenges to earn the right to perform the life exchange. The plot is more or less what you’d expect, though I was pleasantly surprised by a couple of the twists.

Alcott is quite the chatty narrator. He shares his every thought and emotion, often multiple times. The whole thing reads like a teenager with a thesaurus who found inspiration while on vacation in Florida. Everyone acts like a teenager, their reactions strangely amplified. People aren’t pleased; they’re ecstatic. Irritation becomes fury. Nervous becomes terrified. Everything is the most superlative it’s ever been, and everyone’s always yelling, yelping, or wailing.

In short, I think this book was published too soon: it needed to go through another few rounds of edits first.

Also posted on BookCrossing.