Nowhere Near You by Leah Thomas

Ollie and Moritz might never meet, but their friendship knows no bounds. Their letters carry on as Ollie embarks on his first road trip away from the woods--no easy feat for a boy allergic to electricity--and Moritz decides which new school would best suit an eyeless boy who prefers to be alone.

Along the way they meet other teens like them, other products of strange science who lead seemingly normal lives in ways Ollie and Moritz never imagined possible: A boy who jokes about his atypical skeleton; an aspiring actress who hides a strange deformity; a track star whose abnormal heart propels her to victory. Suddenly the future feels wide open for two former hermits. But even as Ollie and Moritz dare to enjoy life, they can't escape their past, which threatens to destroy any progress they've made. Can these boys ever find their place in a world that might never understand them?

Warning: spoilers for book one Because You'll Never Meet Me.

As they are both pushing out of the boxes they were stuck in before, Ollie and Moritz are learning about the world and their place in it. And they both struggled with it. Poor Ollie was over-sensitised by practically everything and was like a puppy in his excitable-ness! But he couldn't adapt magically like he thought he was going to, and of course he felt like he had abandoned his mum. As for Moritz, he was taking a huge leap of faith by transferring to an arts school and who does he bump into but Molly - the girl with two mouths who tried to drown him!

Speaking of, we meet more of the "blunderkids", the poor kids that had been experimented on - like Bridget with her removable heart, and Arthur with super-fragile bones. They all had different experiences and had taken different things from them; for example, Arthur was quite like Ollie in that he didn't fear the world, he just wanted to be part of it. 

And back to Molly, turns out she and Moritz had more in common than they thought: they both were hiding behind masks to never betray their fear. Moritz of course had his goggles and Molly her bravado, but when things go wrong, they go spectacularly wrong. 

All in all, this book broke my heart and painstakingly pieced it back together again; Ollie and Moritz showed that our differences make us better and we are stronger for having friends to rely on, and pull us back from the brink if necessary. 

Published 9th February 2017 by Bloomsbury.