Flip

February 21, 2011
Adult novelist Bedford (The Houdini Girl) makes his YA debut with a moving tale that juggles realistic high school fiction with fantasy while deftly avoiding clichés from both genres. Teenage Alex wakes up one day to find that he has no memory of the past six months of his life and is stuck in the body of a teenager named Philip (nicknamed Flip). As he attempts to live his new life, he learns that his actual body is across the country, in a coma, and that there are others who have swapped bodies as well. Alex is torn between the opportunities a life in Flip's body offers—no asthma, gorgeous girlfriends—and the knowledge that this isn't really his life. Bedford does an excellent job of getting into the mind of a teenager, focusing less on the reason behind the switch than on Alex's concerns about how his friends and family (in both bodies) are affected by the situation. A few missteps—Alex's reluctance to avoid researching his own history being the most notable—don't make the story any less engrossing. Ages 14–up.

March 1, 2011
Fourteen-year-old geeky musician Alex wakes up hundreds of miles from his London home in the body of Philip Garamond, a high-school soccer star and girl magnet nicknamed Flip. Though asthmatic Alex is intrigued by his new, fit body and the attention it draws, he soon realizes he's trapped in a new environment with new expectations that he can't live up to. Along the way he meets Rob, a veteran of the same condition—psychic evacuation—who decides to take Alex under his wing. Bedford packs so much exhilarating action and cleanly cut characterizations into his teen debut that readers will be catapulted headfirst into Alex's strange new world. They'll wince in pain as the police escort him from a vain attempt to reconnect with his real family and rally when he connects with a new girl whom Flip would normally never look at twice. They'll also wonder about Flip himself, who, besides Alex's nightmares, exists only in the expectations and memories of the people Alex encounters. The mysteries are countless: What is a soul? Where does it go when its human host ceases to function? Bedford adeptly sweeps the existential curtain aside and tackles these heavy questions as the tension soars. Alex has to figure out why his soul overtook Flip's body, and how—if at all—he can get back into his own before it's too late. (Thriller. 12 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from June 1, 2011

Gr 7 Up-Alex wakes up in the body of a complete stranger-another 14-year-old boy named "Flip"-in this gripping novel. He soon realizes that it's been six months since he was "himself." While dealing with the immediate challenges of negotiating a strange new world, he tries to figure out what caused the switch, how he might reverse it, and what could possibly be going on with his own body. It's an immediately engaging story, with careful pacing and strong characterizations that add depth to the basic premise. Alex's experiences, though sometimes humorous, are never played strictly for laughs. The boy feels real urgency to contact his true family and the strategies and results of his attempts create real plot tension. New revelations keep the story moving forward swiftly, but never predictably. The author uses Alex's predicament to examine questions of identity, family, and the human soul in ways that are involving and thought-provoking. Alex acts and thinks in ways that most readers will identify with: he's confused, frustrated, and occasionally desperate, but, at the same time, is curious and thoughtful about his bizarre new life and family. He samples some of the benefits of being Flip, including a popularity that Alex never enjoyed, but always yearns to be himself again, which leads to an exciting and particularly satisfying climax.-Steven Engelfried, Wilsonville Public Library, OR

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2011
Grades 7-10 Alex, a 14-year-old asthmatic clarinet player, is shocked when he wakes up not only in a different house but also in a different body, that of good-looking Philip (Flip) Garamond, an athletic magnet for hot girls. When Alex tries to contact his own family, he discovers that his former body is in a coma after it was struck by a hit-and-run driver. Internet research suggests that Alex experienced a psychic evacuation at the moment of near death, and although a fellow PE counsels him to move on and enjoy this new life, Alex cant block out his past. And what has become of Flips soul? The perennial theme of a teens search for identity gets a wholly original spin in this page-turner. Bedford skillfully crafts depictions of Alexs inner conflict and cranks up the tension as Alex fights his way to an ethical and personal decision that will leave readers gasping with surprise. Sure to get teens talking.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2011
Fourteen-year-old Alex Gray wakes up after a nightmare to find that six months have passed overnight. He -- "his thoughts, mind, consciousness, whatever it was that made Alex Alex" -- is inhabiting the body of a stranger, another teenager named Philip Garamond. When Alex contacts his own parents, they call the police: Alex has been in a coma, and "Philip's" assertion that he is Alex is, they think, either cruel or unbalanced. Retrieved by the Garamonds, who think their son is having a difficult but ordinary adolescence, Alex feels trapped and panic-stricken. Even when he learns through internet research that he's one of a small group of "psychic evacuees," he refuses to accept his state. What has happened to Philip's soul, booted out of his body by Alex's? How can Alex get back into his own body? Flip fairly races along, thanks to Bedford's prose and his deep, detailed realism, which makes this a convincing school story as well as an intelligent, probing work of characterization. Bedford pushes readers to query, ever more rigorously, the meaning of identity and adaptation. His sympathetic portrayal of Alex is by turns comic, touching, and suspenseful. deirdre f. baker

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

March 1, 2011
Fourteen-year-old geeky musician Alex wakes up hundreds of miles from his London home in the body of Philip Garamond, a high-school soccer star and girl magnet nicknamed Flip. Though asthmatic Alex is intrigued by his new, fit body and the attention it draws, he soon realizes he's trapped in a new environment with new expectations that he can't live up to. Along the way he meets Rob, a veteran of the same condition--psychic evacuation--who decides to take Alex under his wing. Bedford packs so much exhilarating action and cleanly cut characterizations into his teen debut that readers will be catapulted headfirst into Alex's strange new world. They'll wince in pain as the police escort him from a vain attempt to reconnect with his real family and rally when he connects with a new girl whom Flip would normally never look at twice. They'll also wonder about Flip himself, who, besides Alex's nightmares, exists only in the expectations and memories of the people Alex encounters. The mysteries are countless: What is a soul? Where does it go when its human host ceases to function? Bedford adeptly sweeps the existential curtain aside and tackles these heavy questions as the tension soars. Alex has to figure out why his soul overtook Flip's body, and how--if at all--he can get back into his own before it's too late. (Thriller. 12 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)