thanks for the trouble

Thanks For The Trouble is tragic tale of Parker Santé from San Francisco. He hasn’t spoken a word in five years after a traumatic event changed him.
He struggles to connect with his classmates and skips school to hang out in hotels. It’s there he meets the wonderful, enigmatic and strangely silver haired Zelda Toth, who claims to be far older than she looks, with secrets and sadness of her own.

This is such an easy read, pretty quickly I was attached to poor old Parker and his mother, both trying to come to terms with grief in very different ways. Zelda is vibrant, funny, but at times unleashes a comment that cuts its target to the quick. The adult fairy tales which Parker writes in his journal are spellbinding too, harking back to the original tales before Disney got its saccharine sweet paws on them. These interludes of Fairytales stand on their own.

I must be one of the few Australians that hasn’t read Tommy Wallach’s other YA smash We All Looked Up, but I think I will pop it on my TBR list after reading Thanks For The Trouble.

The book jacket calls this book ‘Skins meets the Breakfast Club’ but I think it’s a little more than that. I definitely had a little bit of a book hangover.

3.5 out of 5 from me!

Thanks For The Trouble

The Book Blurb

Tommy Wallach, the New York Times bestselling author of the “stunning debut” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) We All Looked Up, delivers a brilliant new novel about a young man who overcomes a crippling loss and finds the courage to live after meeting an enigmatic girl.

“Was this story written about me?”
I shrugged.
“Yes or no?”
I shrugged again, finally earning a little scowl, which somehow made the girl even more pretty.
“It’s very rude not to answer simple questions,” she said.
I gestured for my journal, but she still wouldn’t give it to me. So I took out my pen and wrote on my palm.
I can’t, I wrote. Then, in tiny letters below it: Now don’t you feel like a jerk?

Parker Santé hasn’t spoken a word in five years. While his classmates plan for bright futures, he skips school to hang out in hotels, killing time by watching the guests. But when he meets a silver-haired girl named Zelda Toth, a girl who claims to be quite a bit older than she looks, he’ll discover there just might be a few things left worth living for.

From the celebrated author of We All Looked Up comes a unique story of first and last loves. – See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Thanks-for-the-Trouble/Tommy-Wallach/9781481418805#sthash.RX98TmbF.dpuf