Felix Yz

FELIX YZ by Lisa Bunker is a creative look at the difficulties of being in middle school, although the title character has challenges far beyond the typical thirteen-year-old.

With less than a month to go before The Procedure that could kill him, Felix Yz decides to start a blog/journal that details his thoughts leading up to the day of his possible death. Felix has spent ten years fused to a being from the fourth dimension after a lab accident that killed Felix’s father as well as combining Felix and *Zyxilef (or Zyx for short). Terrifying though that may sound, Zyx is a sweet and intelligent soul that acts as a sounding board for Felix, and although Zyx also takes over Felix’s body when moved by something (music and chess have that show more effect), there’s oddly nothing frightening about Zyx’s presence within Felix’s body.

The mild sci fi elements of FELIX YZ aren’t the only things that keep the book fresh and interesting. Felix has one of the most interesting cast of characters I’ve encountered in a while. Felix’s voice is both world-weary and young, and he combines smarts with naivety. In short, he’s wonderful. Zyx has a personality too, and although we don’t know if fourth dimension beings have genders, that’s okay because Felix’s gender fluid grandparent, Grandy, has solved the pronoun problem brilliantly by introducing vo, ven, veir, veirs, and veirself rather than he/she, him/her, his/her, his/hers, and himself/herself. It’s quite helpful throughout the book, and veir solid presence and great personality make Grandy or Vera/Vern (depending on the day of the week) one of my favorite adult characters in middle grades literature to date. The rest of Felix’s family is well developed too. His mom is both strong and vulnerable, and his sister is a musical genius with obvious love for her little brother.

FELIX YZ includes a coming-of-age element as Felix details the progress of his crush on Hector, a boy in Felix’s class who sees in Felix a kindred spirit, and Felix’s dealings with a bully who is relentless in his abuse. Felix’s focus in starting the blog is life and death, but as part of detailing his day-to-day existence, he obviously looks at many different aspects of thirteen-year-old life. The subtlety of Felix’s commentary on his challenges outside of the pending Procedure that may kill him and his wonderfully diverse family doesn’t make the lessons in the book any less powerful, and the low-key approach is perfect for the intended age group of the book. Ultimately FELIX YZ is a wise and beautiful story that combines humor with heartache, and it’s sure to keep the attention of readers of all ages. This is Lisa Bunker's first novel, and I cannot wait for her next one!

My thanks to the publisher and YA Books Central for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review. show less

I liked this book, though I didn't love it. The human characters were well-drawn, especially his stressed-out mother and his serenely genderfluid grandparent, Grandy, and Felix's voice was delightfully readable, but I felt that the worldbuilding around the accident that fused Felix with an extradimensional alien named Zyx was not well-developed enough. Felix seemed mostly to resent Zyx, and Zyx lacked quite enough depth to make vo feel like a real character--vo felt much more like an eager, chess-playing puppy, and veir loss at the end of the book was undercut by that. The book would actually have been better without the SFnal elements, especially since Felix struggles with some bullying based on his perceived disability--a real-world show more disability rather than an alien fusion might have worked better. The gentle romance between Felix and Hector was a highlight of this sweet book, too. In all, definitely a nice story and fantastic on LGBTQ rep, but it was hampered by its lack of commitment to its premise. show less

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.

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.

I loved everything about this book: the main and supporting characters, themes of family, friendship, gender differences, the pacing and the outcome. It didn't matter to me that the science fiction element was not detailed because the story itself was so good. Once I started this, I couldn't put it down.

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.

When Felix was 3 a lab accident changed his life merging him with a 4th dimensional being who shares his body. This has complicated his life in a number of ways and a procedure is coming soon to separate them with a 1:5 chance of Felix surviving. The book is written as a diary with Felix counting down the days until the procedure and all his feels as this is about to happen. He also has some life complications with a crush, a writing contest, a bully.