Confessions of an Imaginary Friend (Michelle Cuevas)

Confessions of an Imaginary Friend: A Memoir by Jacques Papier
Michelle Cuevas
Rocky Pond Books
Fiction, CH Fantasy/Humor
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: Jacques Papier has always felt invisible; teachers ignore his raised hand, nobody picks him for teams at recess, and his parents even have to be reminded to set a place for him at the table. If not for his twin sister and best friend Fleur, he'd wonder if he even existed at all.
It isn't until he talks to the roller-skating cowgirl at the playground - a girl nobody else seems to notice - that he begins to realize that he's imaginary.
Driven to an existential (or nonexistential) crisis by this discovery, Jacques seeks out other imaginary friends as he tries to figure out just who, and what, he really is, a journey that will lead him far from his beloved sister Fleur on an adventure beyond even his own imagination.

REVIEW: Clearly inspired by the song "Puff the Magic Dragon" with some elements of Toy Story, this tale of an imaginary friend discovering his true self and purpose beyond the girl who created him is surprisingly touching while still being whimsical, exploring the ways in which imagination takes on a (literal) life of its own as it enables people to become better selves, even beyond the mind that sparked it.
Written from Jacques's point of view (and narrated with a light French accent in the audiobook version), the imaginary boy starts out feeling invisible in the way children often do, only it's clear to everyone but Jacques that there's more to it than that. Still, Fleur has more than enough love and belief to sustain them both... which is why, in addition to being increasingly upset by how he's overlooked, Jacques becomes very cross when he overhears their parents talking behind closed doors, concerned about Fleur's imaginary friend. She never kept secrets from him before - he knows because they keep a detailed map of their world, and all the secrets they've discovered in it. Nowhere on that map is a place for an imaginary friend! In retaliation, he tries to come up with his own imaginary friend, a dragon-herring, which doesn't go well and leads to a tipping point where the Papiers demand Fleur get rid of her nonexistent brother. (This, in turn, ends up leading to a psychiatrist when Fleur decides that Jacques is no more invisible and imaginary than she herself feels, and goes to extreme lengths to prove her own nonexistence to her skeptical parents.) Forced to confront his own reality, Jacques finds a community of other imaginary friends, and comes to understand that his kind can be both a help and a hindrance to the children they're with; some are just playmates, but others are signs of deeper problems, more enablers than healers, and not all of them are helpful, as he learns the hard way when he sets out on his own on the dubious word of another imaginary being. Through a series of mostly-amusing adventures and child companions, all of which involve some reinvention of himself, Jacques learns what it means to be an embodiment of imagination, and just what kind of friend he is meant to be. The ending kicked the rating up a half-notch with a moment of pure wonder and beauty (and a much better ending than the song that inspired the protagonist's name).

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