Travis Coates has a good head…on someone else’s shoulders. A touching, hilarious, and wholly original coming-of-age story from John Corey Whaley, author of the Printz and Morris Award–winning Where Things Come Back.
Listen—Travis Coates was alive once and then he wasn’t. Now he’s alive again. Simple as that.
The in between part is still a little fuzzy, but Travis can tell you that, at some point or another, his head got chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado. Five years later, it was reattached to some other guy’s body, and well, here he is. Despite all logic, he’s still sixteen, but everything and everyone around him has changed. That includes his bedroom, his parents, his best friend, and his girlfriend. Or maybe she’s not his girlfriend anymore? That’s a bit fuzzy too.
Looks like if the new Travis and the old Travis are ever going to find a way to exist together, there are going to be a few more scars.
John Corey Whaley grew up in Louisiana. His debut novel, Where Things Come Back, was the 2012 winner of the Michael L. Printz and the William C. Morris Awards. You can learn more about him at JohnCoreyWhaley.com and follow him on Twitter: @Corey_Whaley.
Read an Excerpt
Noggin
Listen—I was alive once and then I wasn’t. Simple as that. Now I’m alive again. The in-between part is still a little fuzzy, but I can tell you that, at some point or another, my head got chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado.
You might have done it too. The dying part, I mean. Or the choosing-to-die part, anyway. They say we’re the only species on the planet with the knowledge of our own impending doom. It’s just that some of us feel that doom a lot sooner than expected. Trust me when I tell you that everything can go from fine and dandy to dark and depressing faster than you can say “acute lymphoblastic leukemia.”
The old me got so sick so fast that no one really had time to do anything but talk about how sick he got and how fast he got that way. And the chemo and the radiation and the bone marrow transplants didn’t do anything but make him sicker faster and with much more ferocity than before.
They say you can’t die more than once. I would strongly disagree. But this isn’t a story about the old me dying. No one wants to hear about how I told my parents, my best friend, Kyle, and my girlfriend, Cate, that I was choosing to give up. That’s a story I don’t want to tell. What I do want to tell you, though, is a story about how I suddenly found myself waking up in a hospital room with my throat sore, dry and burning, like someone had shoved an entire bag of vinegar-soaked cotton balls down it. I want to tell you about how I was moving my fingers and wiggling my toes and how the doctors and nurses standing around me were so impressed with this. I’m not sure why blinking my eyes earned a round of applause and why it mattered that I was peeing into a bag, but to these people, it was like they were witnessing a true miracle. Some of the nurses were even crying.
I want to tell you a story about how you can suddenly wake up to find yourself living a life you were never supposed to live. It could happen to you, just like it happened to me, and you could try to get back the life you think you deserve to be living. Just like I did.
They told me I couldn’t talk, said it was too early to try that just yet. I didn’t know why, but I listened anyway. My mom and dad walked in, and she cried big tears and he went in to touch my face, and the nurse asked him to wait, asked him to please step aside until they were sure everything was working okay.
They gave me a small white board and a marker and told me to write my name. I did. Travis Ray Coates. They asked me to write down where I live. I did. Kansas City, Missouri. They asked me to write down my school. I did. Springside High. They asked me to write down the year. I did. Then the room got suddenly quiet, and even though it was bright and clean and I could smell medicine and bleach, I knew something was wrong.
This is when they told me that they’d done it. They’d gone through with the whole cranial hibernation and reanimation thing. They’d actually gone and cut my head off. I was so sure they’d put me under and changed their minds and that I’d gone through all that paperwork for nothing. But then my mom held up a mirror, and I saw that my head was shaved nearly bald and that my neck had bandages wrapped all around it. I looked pretty rough—my lips were purple and cracked, my cheeks were flushed, and my eyes were big and glazed over. Drugged, my eyes were drugged.
I’m going to tell you the truth here and say that I never, not once, not even for a tiny second, thought this crazy shit would work. And I never thought they did either. My parents, I mean. But I looked up at their wet eyes and felt their hands on my hands, and I knew right then that they were as happy as any two people had ever been. Their dead son lying on a bed in front of them, silent but with a beat in his chest again. Mary Shelley’s nightmare come true, right there in a hospital in Denver.
Hospitals. I knew hospitals. I knew them like most kids know their own homes, know their neighborhoods, and know which yards to avoid and which ones it’s safe to leave your bike in. I knew a nurse was only allowed to give you extra pain meds if a doctor had signed off on it first but that getting extra Jell-O only took a few smiles and maybe a joke or two, maybe a flash of the dimples. And like a factory, a hospital has its own rhythm, sounds from every room that collide in the air and echo down into your ears and repeat themselves, even in the nighttime, when the world wants so bad to appear silent and quiet and peaceful. Beeps, footsteps, the tearing of plastic, spinning wheels on carts, Wheel of Fortune on the neighbor’s TV. These were the sounds I died to, and these were the ones that welcomed me back. A world so noisy you have to lean up a bit to hear the familiar doctor as he tries to speak over it all, and just as you were starting to get used to the light, you have to close your eyes to hear him. A world that looks almost exactly the same as the one you closed your eyes to before, so much the same that you think about laughing because you got so close to being done with it all. Until you finally hear the doctor as he speaks a little louder this time.
Noggin 4.2 out of 5based on
0 ratings.
13 reviews.
Anonymous
More than 1 year ago
This is another phenomenal work by John Corey Whaley. I love his writing and I love his stories. He is an exceptional writer and I love how he tells the stories. His voice is such a nice touch to his writing and his characters are so easily loved. Great work!! Loved it.
Anonymous
More than 1 year ago
This was one of tbe funniest and emotional books i have ever read. Noggin is one of the most amazing books i have ever read. At first i was not so sure (it begins pretty slow) but in the end i was very impressed. I reccomend this to fans of books like if i stay.
Anonymous
More than 1 year ago
I read John Corey Whaley's first novel, Where Things Come Back, and I really liked it so I thought I would read this one. Now, I usually don't enjoy romantic, angsty, teeny-bopper "The Fault in Our Stars" style books, but I actually like Whaley's books because they have good messages for teens, unusual and engaging stories, relatable characters and themes, and are generally not annoying like a lot of other YA novels out there. The story is really funny at times and the characters are just the right amount of flawed. I also mentioned how I'm not into cheesy and emotional stuff, but there were bits that were actually really heart-wrenching because, even though this story is really out there and crazy, you really feel for the main character and his suffering just makes you sad and his idiocy makes you laugh and his best friend makes you happy and it's all just great. I can't put it into words any better than this so just go read it. :)
Anonymous
More than 1 year ago
Badly told story. Write doesn't undetstand teens at all. On top of that very unlikeable main character.
eheinlen
More than 1 year ago
The concept for this book was interesting and it was interesting to see how each person dealt with Travis being alive again. However, the ending left you wondering where the rest of the book was as there was no closure.
Te1
More than 1 year ago
This was a wonderful story. Don't usually do 'heart warming' however, this book grabbed me from the 1st page.You'll love Travis and can't help but empathize.
Oliviafar
More than 1 year ago
I loved this book. The story line was completely original. A boy that had his frozen head attached to another person's body. That got me hooked. The book was funny and I loved the way the author made the book flow.
Anonymous
More than 1 year ago
I read thus book for teen read week at school and to me i luked it but sometimes it was annoying cause travis was too obsessed with cate up to askung her to marry him even tjough she was enaged and he was stuck being a teenager that it got annoying but i luked the ending because he does something back ti cate that she did to him before when he was going ti get hiw head cut off.u Anyway i got to meet the author in person and he talked about his book. The school librarian is an author her name is jessie kirby and she wrote a couple books. Moonglass golden and her newest one calle rhings we kbow by heart so check tjose out. Anyway thy are friends so oir school got to meet him. And overall i reaally liked the book
Anonymous
More than 1 year ago
I thought this book was going to be horrible, but it was amazing.... I couldn't put it down till the very end.
Anonymous
More than 1 year ago
Another amazing read by the author
I love the intelligence and insight of the characters
Carnitas_Fever
More than 1 year ago
I think this is such a fun concept for a book. A boy with cancer (I know, a lot of that going around) is terminal. The only way to save him is to remove his head and save it for the future, when it may be reattached to a new body.
It only took 5 years for technology to catch up to the doctor's ideas, and our young hero is returned to a new healthy body. The fun of the story comes with the boy being the same 16 year old has when he left. The problem is that everyone else has aged 5 years. His best fiend is in college. His girlfriend is engaged to be married to someone else.
This is not a science fiction book. There is not even an explanation of how the surgery was done, or very many doctors in the book at all. Mostly a fish-out-of-water story, taking a new twist on the problem of a patient waking up from a coma, and realizing the world continued to change while he was asleep. This is a fun story, and worth the read.
Lisa-LostInLiterature
More than 1 year ago
I went into this book without reading the synopsis. A friend of mine had recommended it, so when I was offered the audiobook for review I thought, “why not?”.
Noggin was… well, pretty weird, honestly. The whole idea of it was a bit much. When I first started listening I was completely confused. A head transplant? So this kid gets sick and is dying… so they chop off his head, freeze it, and 5 years later end up attaching it to another teenager’s body? Hmm… a little farfetched for someone like me that has trouble with certain science fiction stories anyway. But since I had received this book for review, I continued on, trying my best to keep an open mind.
The story actually completely changed by the second and third chapters. The head transplant was completed, and the story began. It actually turned out to be a very sweet story. I really started to feel for Travis. He was still sixteen, yet everyone and everything else in his life had aged 5 years while he was frozen. His girlfriend had moved on, now engaged to be married. His young cousins were grown up. His whole life as he had known it was completely different. (In a strange way, this story kind of reminded me a bit of Taken. The whole dealing-with-life-aging-while-you’re-not-there thing.)
The romance, friendships, and family ties throughout this story was very refreshing. So often we see parents that are non-existent or not approving of their children’s choices and lives. It was really nice to see Travis’ parents so involved in his life, in making him better, and in helping him accept his new life.
Overall, a cute story, though slightly out-there are times, that was entertaining and fun.
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