The Infinite Noise (The Bright Sessions #1) by Lauren Shippen
"Caleb Michaels is a sixteen-year-old champion running back. Other than that his life is pretty normal. But when Caleb starts experiencing mood swings that are out of the ordinary for even a teenager, his life moves beyond “typical.”
Caleb is an Atypical, an individual with enhanced abilities. Which sounds pretty cool except Caleb's ability is extreme empathy—he feels the emotions of everyone around him. Being an empath in high school would be hard enough, but Caleb's life becomes even more complicated when he keeps getting pulled into the emotional orbit of one of his classmates, Adam. Adam's feelings are big and all-consuming, but they fit together with Caleb's feelings in a way that he can't quite understand.
Caleb's therapist, Dr. Bright, encourages Caleb to explore this connection by befriending Adam. As he and Adam grow closer, Caleb learns more about his ability, himself, his therapist—who seems to know a lot more than she lets on—and just how dangerous being an Atypical can be."
“What's the word for when you're sitting at a table with someone you don't know all that well and they maybe just implied that you're gay and you are gay and you think they were trying to be inclusive or something but you kind of shut them down because they asked out your crush earlier and you really don't want to be having this conversation and now there's all this weird, unsaid stuff in the air that's making it hard to focus on your debate prep?
Is there a word for that?”
― Lauren Shippen, The Infinite Noise
This book was so worth the wait! It was so exciting to go back to the Bright Sessions storyline and read about Caleb and Adam’s story a little more closely since they were so adorable together.
Despite the fact that after listening to the show, I knew they were going to end up together, this was still a really interesting story. You also get to see more of Adam’s point of view which I really enjoyed. My one criticism (and the only thing that kept me from rating 5/5) was that it felt like there were parts that weren’t fully fleshed out because the author had already told their story on the podcast. The climax felt a bit rushed for this reason, especially since the rest of the book moves at a slower pace, but not annoyingly so. I still really enjoyed reading about these two. It’s such an interesting premise to mix a fairly typical high school romance with a superhero story. I loved it!
Genre: ya, fantasy, contemporary, lgbtqia+
Representation: gay/queer
Content Warnings: Bullying, Coercion, Coma, Depression, Fatphobic rhetoric, Harassment, Homophobic slurs and misogyny (challenged), Human experiments, Mind reading, Self-harm (mentioned), Violence (mild)