Mixed Up

Korman, Gordon. Mixed Up
July 18, 2023 by Scholastic Press

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Twelve year old Reef Moody never knew his father, so when his mother passed away from COVID, he was lucky to be taken in by his mother's best friend, Jenna, and her husband Will. The Helmers are nice, and Liam and Caroline are accepting of their new family member, but Declan, who is two years older, is absolutely horrible to Reef. He throws things at him in his sleep, and even steals the principal's purse and hides it in Reef's sock drawer. Knowing that Reef has had a hard time, it is agreed that if he replaces the $200 that was stolen, he won't get in further trouble, so Reef has to deal with all of the garbage in the Helmer household for $20 per week. Across town, Theo Metzinger has his own troubles. His father wishes that Theo had more friends, did more activities, and had more interests than keeping the local rabbit menace, Jaws, away from the family vegetable garden. Theo is always being admonished to toughen up and "be a man", which just irritates him. Even his younger sister seems to fulfill his father's ideas about what he should be like better than Theor does. Both boys start to have memories that don't seem to belong to them, and at the same time, start to forget parts of their own lives. When a local warehouse fire shows a nearby school, Theo knows that it is the school from his memories and bikes the four miles across town to investigate. Once there, he meets Portia, whom he has seen in the memories, outside the school. In an uncharacteristic burst of extrovertism, he chats her up and finds out that she works at a local food pantry. In order to find out more about why he has memories of her, he works the food pantry into his schedule, along with martial arts and seeing a therapist. Reef struggles on, missing his mother and having to deal with Declan. His biggest fear is forgetting his mother, whose COVID death he blames on himself. Portia had had a birthday party, but then gotten sick, and Reef knows he passed on the virus to his mother. When the boys finally meet, they recognize each other and try to figure out what happened to connect their brains. It all comes down to the fact that they were born on the same day in the same hospital, so they investigate until they locate a nurse who was there the day they were born. She has some information about what happened, and the boys decide that in order to disconnect their brains, they need to recreate the environment that led to the connection. This isn't easy, especially since Declan and a local reprobate are trying to work out a food pantry heist. Will the boys be able to make peace with their lives and regain their own memories? 
Strengths: This was another fascinating premise from Korman, who has done several other interesting reflections about identity, like Restart and Operation Do-Over. Who are we if we can't remember what has happened in our lives? Reef's situation is both emotionally dire but physically pretty stable; Will and Jenna are very kind and understanding, and I like to think that after his problems with Declan are resolved, Reef will have a decent life, even though it will be sadder without his mother. Theo is able to show his father that there are ways other than his own to be a successful person. Portia is an interesting character who is friends with both boys and holds many elements of the story together. There's just enough unexplained phenomena in this one to categorize it as fantasy, but enough real world problems to appeal to even the most fantasy-averse reader. 
Weaknesses: Declan was so utterly evil to Reef that it was hard to believe that he would turn himself around, but it was good to see that he was able to. While the parental death was a key plot element, it's still just never my favorite topic. 
What I really think: As long as my students don't try to get hit by lightning while in a bouncy castle, I think this is a fun read with some very interesting ideas. I frequently recommend Korman titles to teachers as literature circle choices, since it is hard to go wrong with his work. This is dedicated to Korman fan "Raymond Jardine", @theamelpos, from Twitter, and now I really need to go back and read A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag!