This writing in this book deserves all the stars it can get, but I gave the book only four stars for a reason I'll explain at the end of my review.
I originally picked up this book because Stephen Christian, the author, is also the lead singer in my favorite band Anberlin. The lyrics he writes for Anberlin's songs are so exquisite and beautiful, and that same writing style comes across in this book as well.
The Orphaned Anything's (I'm aware that apostrophe is wrong) is essentially a journal that chronicles a small part of Ayden Kosacov's life as he struggles to find meaning or purpose in his day-to-day activities. It is funny, witty, heartbreaking, artistic, philosophical, and beautiful. I think all of us can relate to Ayden in one way or another because of how raw and honest his thoughts and descriptions are throughout this story.
Although this is a rather short novel, it is full of so much emotion. It also is abundant with quotable lines that I just want to hang on my walls. I really can't explain the kind of impact this book had on me, but I can guarantee this is a book I will be purchasing and reading again and again.
The reason I docked a star is for the very apparent lack of editing. This book is written entirely in lowercase letters, which is unique and adds to its idea of it being a journal, and this wouldn't bother me at all if it were the only nonconventional decision. However, on top of no capital letters there were rampant misspellings all throughout the book, wrong words being used in place of the obviously intended words, apostrophes where there should be none (note the title) and no apostrophes where there should be some, other egregious punctuation mistakes, and many other writing and editing errors that are too minute to list. As an editor, I was not only bothered but also downright distracted by the visual presentation of the book. Even one quick round through an editor would have fixed over 95% of the errors and made for a more seamless reading experience. So I am subtracting a star for how distracting it is to read this book, but this subtracted star in no way impacts the masterful writing displayed on every page of the story.
Overall, this book can be described in one word that doesn't quite do it justice: beautiful.
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