Vogue: Mean Girls meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is basically a long-winded way of calling it perfection in book form. It’s from the POV of the “third most popular girl in school” who’s a self-described freak at heart, and it takes a funny, relatable look into the intricacies of high school social hierarchy.
In this Mean Girls meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower tale, narrator Anika Dragomir is the third most popular girl at Pound High School. But inside, she knows she’s a freak; she can’t stop thinking about former loner Logan McDonough, who showed up on the first day of tenth grade hotter, bolder, and more mysterious than ever. Logan is fascinating, troubled and off-limits. The Pound High queen bee will make Anika’s life hell if she’s seen with him. So Anika must choose—ignore her feelings and keep her social status? Or follow her heart and risk becoming a pariah. Which will she pick? And what will she think of her choice when an unimaginable tragedy strikes, changing her forever? An absolutely original new voice in YA in a story that will start important conversations—and tear at your heart.
Complex Chinese rights to Robert McCammon’s THE BORDER to Nautilus by Gray Tan at the Grayhawk Agency, on behalf of Cameron McClure.
Russian rights to editors Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger’s anthology IN THE COMPANY OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, to AST, by Alexander Korzhenevski Agency in association with Cameron McClure.
German rights to Adam Christopher’s THE AGE ATOMIC, to Papierverzierer Verlag, by Franka Zastrow at Thomas Schlueck Agency, in association with Cameron McClure on behalf of Stacia Decker.
Turkish rights to Margaret Anne Doody’s ARISTOTLE AND POETIC JUSTICE, ARISTOTLE AND THE SECRETS OF LIFE, POISON IN ATHENS, and MYSTERIES OF ELEUSIS, to Alfa by Nazlı Çökdü at ONK Agency, in a four-book deal, in association with Katie Shea Boutillier.
New York Times Book Review: It’s the classic teenage movie “Heathers,” with a love triangle and Anika as Veronica Sawyer, the darkly comic insider with an outsider’s perspective and a tortured outcast love interest who raises questions of social hierarchy.
School Library Journal: Anika Dragomir is the third most popular girl in school, despite being of mixed heritage in an overwhemingly white neighborhood. She’s smart, attractive, and knows that the most popular girl, Becky Vilhauer, is a bully. Still, Anika clings to the tenuous friendship for fear of the total social annihilation that Becky will put her through if she displeases her in any way. Anika is constantly trying to reconcile the “spider stew” of her true self with her social persona, which leads to a series of hilarious escapades and a decidedly double life. When she finds herself falling for former nerd turned hottie, Logan McDonough, she manages to keep their relationship secret by arranging regular midnight rendezvous. Continue reading »
Kirkus: Anika Dragomir, the third most popular girl at her high school in 1980s Nebraska, is pursued by two different boys, both off-limits to her, in a romance filled with seriously funny dark humor and tragedy.
When, toward the end of this unconventional novel, Anika realizes that she may have inherited her tendency toward mental imbalance from her loving and smart but eccentric mother, it’s an epiphany for her. It might not be similarly revelatory for readers, given the first-person window they’ve been given into her thoughts throughout. Nevertheless, Anika will already have won most of them over, even in the face of some questionable moral lapses, such as dosing her (albeit obnoxious and, it turns out, racist) boss’s coffee with Valium and pilfering money from the register. She worries that, inside, she’s “spider soup,” but it’s clear that Anika’s a good soul, though she’s terrified of her supposed friend, the most popular girl in school. Continue reading »
Publishers Weekly: As the third most popular girl in school, 15-year-old Anika Dragomir worries a lot about her precarious social rank, which means tolerating the casual cruelties of Becky Vilhauer, who rules their Nebraska high school with an iron fist. Morally conflicted, Anika surreptitiously tries to undo some of Becky’s damage (such as dismantling an invented pregnancy rumor), but Anika’s secret relationship with geek-turned-hottie Logan McDonough only adds to her problems. This nascent romance is further complicated when Jared Kline, “the biggest stone-cold fox in the city, possibly in the state,” unexpectedly starts courting Becky and she gets disturbing glimpses of Logan’s home life. In this YA debut, adult author Portes (Hick; Bury This) serves up a self-deprecating and highly memorable heroine whose bawdy, laceratingly funny narration makes her instantly endearing while also revealing her flaws, uncertainties, and ethical quandaries. Throughout, Portes hints that tragedy is in the cards, and while the final chapters flirt with melodrama, the novel will leave many readers dwelling on missed opportunities to take a stand in their own lives.
Andrea Portes’ BURY THIS has been named a Top Indie Fiction pick by Library Journal!
The body of a young woman is found by a snow plower at the side of the road in 1979 small-town Michigan, and the case is unsolved for 25 years until some film students decide to make a documentary. The effect on the town, always insidious, turns incendiary. VERDICT Based on a true story, this book delivers suspense but means to be a social study, told in precise, lyrical language.
Leah Ferguson’s ALL THE DIFFERENCE, written in alternating chapters, if she said yes and if she said no, about a career-focused 30-year-old who finds out that she’s pregnant on the day her long-term boyfriend proposes to her and is faced with making a choice, to Julie Mianecki at Berkley, by Katie Shea Boutillier.
Congratulations to Carolita Blythe on Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl being selected as a Bank Street Best Book of 2014!
Girls who are pretty have a way of looking down their perfect noses at anyone they feel isn’t worthy of sharing the air with them. They have a way of making regular girls like me feel inferior for not winning the gene pool lottery. Tormenting them is my way of getting even.
Everyone knows that pretty equals mean, and Evelyn Ryder used to be a beautiful movie star—never mind that it was practically a lifetime ago. There’s no time limit on mean. So if you think I feel guilty about mugging her, think again.
But for something that should have been so simple, it sure went horribly wrong.