So I started reading Nobody by Jennifer Lynn Barnes...

Goodreads

"The world has an energy to it. Everyone and everything—people, objects, animals, plants... even rocks and dirt and molecules of air—they're all made upp of energy. And when they interact with each other, they leave their marks on the world, and it is through that exchange of energy that all happenings happen. That love blossoms. That connections are made."

The world of Nobody is a rather depressing world. Both Claire and Nix are Nobodies, people who lack the ability to reciprocate energy and receive energy. They are nothing, less than air, and they know it. Which is what makes the book so depressing! Here are some quotes so you get to know a little of the main characters:

No matter what you do, no matter where you go, people will always look through you. They will affect you, but you will never affect them. 

Nix's chest began to burn and with silent, ritualized savagery, he slashes at himself, uneven fingernails carving jagged red lines into his stomach and arms. Beads of sweat rose on his bare skin.

Yeah, he is a bit of an emo boy.

 If you let yourself, you could love—but no one will ever love you. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't. That thing, that intangible thing that other people have that lets them form connections, that lets them matter. 

You don't have it. 

You will never have it.

He is saying these things to himself. He was raised by a system who has taught him these lessons since he was a small child, and he believed them. Now he is an emo kid who is an assassin, and a psychotic one at that. He is scary, and exactly what you think an assassin would be like.

Claire on the other hand...

Someone tried to kill me, and I'm going swimming. I'm going swimming, because it doesn't matter. I'm going swimming, because I don't matter. I'm going swimming, because that's what Claires do. We swim and we daydream and we read and we wait for someone to care, and they never, ever, ever do.

It could be fairly easy to put Claire into the same boat Nix is, but she is different than him in that she really, really tried to make herself not wallow in self pity...

She tired so hard not to get upset. She tired so hard to find the fun, to be happy, to be sweet. To not ask for things. To not make a nuisance of herself  She tried so hard to build her own little world and love it and not mind so much that the rest of the world left hers alone. 

Does your daughter have an overactive imagination?                                                              

Claire glared at the mirror, the policeman's question echoing in her mind. "Yes. Yes, she does. She has to. Don't you understand that? She has—I have to!" 

This was why Claire didn't wallow for more than two minutes a year. It  was so much lonelier this way. So much harder to believe that it would ever change.

Then again Claire wasn't brainwashed ever since she was a little kid so you have to give that to Nix. The book as a whole seems to be focused on the battle between overly charismatic people (who are described as being both able to bend emotions at will, it seems they love it, AND at the same time hollow shells?) and overly depressing people. But I feel for Claire, because she really tries to be positive even though she is always overlooked.

So yeah, I'm going to keep reading it even though right off the bat I have some trouble with it. The depressing factor (was Raised by Wolves as depressing as this one?), the way the Nulls are described, and the inner talks of Nix telling himself he is worthless and describing what he is over and over again, are bound to be a turn off, but I am hoping things pick up with a bit of action. Also, I am sticking around for Claire, she is such a sweet girl you can't help but root for her.