My rating: 5 of 5 stars
At hotels, you are an actress. Absolutely. You can do what you want. Go where you want. I love my home too. But I love to arrive in a hotel. They have books, chocolate, food. I put things in the little refrigerator.
----Sonia Rykiel
Tommy Wallach, a Brooklyn-based writer and musician, pens his next entertaining and captivating young adult novel, Thanks for the Trouble that explores the friendship shared between two young souls, although one of the souls claim to be older than the looks, in a hotel on a Halloween night, over a journal filled with funny and thought-provoking stories written by one of the souls.
Synopsis:
“I’ve got some questions for you. 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 brought a bloom to her pale cheeks and made sharp shelves of her cheekbones.
“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 I can’t on my palm.
Then, in tiny letters below it, I finished the thought: 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.
Parker Santé, the high school senior, has opt to be mute and silent after his father's tragic death five years ago. Parker's favorite place to hangout while bunking school is a fancy hotel, so just like a normal day on a Halloween, while hanging out at San Francisco's Palace Hotel, he gets the rarest opportunity to lay his eyes upon a beautiful silver haired girl. Unfortunately, taking advantage of the girl's carelessness, Parker steals her purse, on the other hand, this girl finds Parker's only precious possession- his journal, where he writes short stories. Well, after this, they become acquaintances and start hanging out in the hotel, while sharing their dreams, Parker through writing stories and the girl, who introduces herself as Zelda Toth, and as per her, she is nearly 250 years old. Little did they knew, that they would be entering the world filled with the raging teenage hormones while exploring one other's dreams and also one another's bodies.
This story is basically Parker's answer to his college application form, where he narrates about Zelda and her frozen-age for the last hundred years and about the changes she brought upon his life. So the readers are in for a treat as they will experience a story within a fictional world of the author. Yet once again, the author ardently pens this story that provokes the thoughts of the readers about life and opportunities, be he/she a teenager or an adult.
The writing is very articulate and the author have layered his plot with a myriad of intricate descriptions. Moreover, the visual imagery of all those honest moments shared between the two characters is strikingly portrayed in the book. The pace is really quite moderate, as there are stories withing the main story line, that are eventually unwrapped by the author. The narrative style is more like skeptical, proverbial yet catchy and entertaining and has the power to behold the attention of the readers until the very end.
The author has yet again broken from the stereotype high school characters, instead reflects his characters with realism, rawness and honesty. The main protagonist as well the second central character, both, are laced with enough flaws and it feels like screwing things up is like their middle name. Peter is funny and traumatized from his father's death, but the way he evolves and opens up to this girl and the possibility of exploring a new dimension of life is simply amazing and thoroughly believable, thus making the readers rooting our for him till the very end. Zelda's character has so many layer, and while unraveling each layer, the readers are bound to feel intrigued towards her realistic demeanor. The rest of the supporting cast are also quite well drawn and will keep the readers interested all through out this book.
The love story between Zelda and Parker is hot and sexy as the readers will feel the heat through the pages of this book. The author has depicted their relationship with passion yet keeping it cute, and the readers can easily feel it with depth. Mind it, this love story is not at all PG-13, instead its intense and true.
In a nutshell, this book will arrest the minds and hearts of the readers all through the 276 pages, as the author laces his story with honest characters, real-life issues and in-depth layering.
Verdict: For the fans of realistic YA this is simply a must read!
Courtesy: Thanks to the author, Tommy Wallach's, publicist, for providing me with a copy of the book, in return for an honest review.
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Author Info:
Tommy Wallach is a Brooklyn-based writer and musician. His first novel, We All Looked Up, will be published by Simon and Schuster in April 2015. His work has appeared in many nice magazines, such as McSweeney's, Tin House, and Wired. He has released an EP with Decca Records, and will be independently putting out an LP in Spring 2014. He also makes music videos, including one that was exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum. You should buy him dinner.
Visit him here
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I did enjoy this book very much. I think I would have enjoyed the book more with reading than on audio. the narrator was hard for me to get used to. but the story I loved.
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