I loved this book. After I read it, I found out that Vaught is a practising neuropsychologist who works with teens and that made perfect sense. It's about Jersey Hatch, a boy recovering from a severe head injury. As the plot unfolds you discover, along with him, how the injury happened (he has partial memory loss and is confused about how he got hurt). Jersey's arc is particularly satisfying as he figures out how the injury has changed him, and how people see him now that he is so different -- a hard-core version of what happens to all teens as they have to learn how they are as they turn into adults. He has a low-key, stubborn, patient courage that I've not often seen depicted in fiction. The story deals with teen suicide and the harsh, judgemental attitudes people have about suicide, but it's funny and wry too. A powerful story that was never preachy or didactic. The writer has compassion for all the characters, even the not-so-likeable people.
Life in a Fishbowl by Lev Vlahos was good enough to make me read it to the end, but severely flawed. A fragile and insecure girl discovers that her father has a brain tumour and only a few months left to live, and on top of thiat, he has signed himself and his family over to be a reality show. So they have to live out the last weeks of his life in a blaze of publicity with no privacy at all. There are many characters, including the brain tumour itself, which has a point of view role in the story.
I'm pretty certain the author loves Roald Dahl! The story has a Dahly feel about it, but doesn't quite convince. Several of the plot threads (there are many) feel like things that should have been removed or combined. The baddies (there are many of them) are outrageously, cartoon level bad without any redeeming qualities, and I get a sense that the author finds good, decent people boring and so doesn't really know how to write them. That said, the core plot, in which the teen girl main character turns the tables on the evil reality show director with the help of her Russian pen-pall is gripping and deeply satisfying. And the brain tumour's point of view story is oddball and quirky, but it works.
On the nose, not particularly subtle, but interesting enough.