No Perfect Places
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
From lauded author Steven Salvatore comes a moving YA novel about twins whose incarcerated father dies and leaves behind a life-changing secret, perfect for fans of I'll Give You the Sun and Euphoria.
When their father went to prison last year for embezzlement, twins Alex and Olly Brucke lost everything: their house, their college funds, most of their friends, and even their mother, who's so focused on making ends meet that she's never around anymore. The only thing they can count on lately is each other.
But after their father dies unexpectedly in prison, the twins start to fracture. Alex is spiraling, skipping classes to spend all of her time drunk or high. And Olly is struggling with a secret his dad ordered him to keep: they have a secret half-brother named Tyler.
When Tyler shows up in their lakeside town for the summer, hoping to get to know his siblings, Olly hides the truth from Alex. But as Alex and Tyler start to form a friendship, the lies become harder to juggle. If they can't confront their father's past and fix their relationship, Olly and Alex each risk losing two siblings forever.
No Perfect Places is a thought-provoking novel about grief, family secrets, and figuring out how to belong against the odds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Via immersive prose, Salvatore (And They Lived...) renders two teens' fraught summer in Lake George, N.Y., for an atmospheric and intricate telling of grief, family secrets, and siblinghood. What used to be a relatively comfortable life for white teenage twins Alex and Olly Brucke has been upended by new financial stressors ever since their father was imprisoned for embezzlement 18 months ago. Things grow more complicated when Olly, who is nonbinary, receives a letter containing a paternity test meant for Dad from a teenager named Tyler Dell, who Olly learns is the twins' half brother. Olly's parents urge them to drop the matter and keep it secret from Alex, but Olly instead strikes up a clandestine email friendship with Tyler. After their father dies in prison, however, the narrative jumps to the following summer, in which grief-stricken Alex escapes her sorrows through illicit substances, and Olly spends time with their boyfriend, until the siblings' lives are turned upside down once again when Tyler suddenly arrives in Lake George from Pennsylvania. Alex and Olly's distinct alternating perspectives add depth and intimacy, cultivating a kaleidoscopic narrative that shines brightest when focused on the twins' complex—and clearly loving—relationship. Ages 12–up.
