Vibes
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A high school girl can read minds—and doesn't like what she hears—in this novel that "will have you laughing out loud" (Barry Lyga, author of The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl).
Nothing is beyond Kristi Carmichael's disdain—her hippie high school, her friend Jacob, her workaholic mom. Yet for all her attitude, Kristi has a vulnerable side. She can hear the thoughts of her fellow students—a power that's not as cool as it sounds, since she can hear them calling her fat and gross. She's hot for Gusty Peterson, one of the most popular guys in school, but of course, she's sure he thinks she's disgusting. And she's still mad at her father, who walked out on her two years ago.
Soon, a school project brings her together with Gusty, her father comes home and drops a bombshell, and a friend comes out of the closet—and suddenly she is left doubting that she can read people at all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wearing skirts she's made out of Mylar balloons or potato sacks, shirts she's sewed out of torn umbrellas or her absentee dad's abandoned clothing, narrator Kristi marches to her alternative high school, prepared to take on a world that hates her she's pretty sure of it, given that she can read minds. Ryan, far outstripping the level of plotting and characterizations in her debut, Shadow Falls, turns in an exceptional second novel. Although Kristi is hostile to her mother, classmates and teachers, and genuinely nasty to total strangers, she makes herself vulnerable to readers. She is also consistently funny in a cynical, teenage way: "I live in a suburb of a suburb. I'm surrounded by the offspring of professional people who attend parent-teacher meetings and volunteer on Election Day." Events cast doubt Kristi's mind-reading skills, but given the author's solid portraiture, readers will nevertheless want to trust Kristi, even before she learns to trust herself. Ryan works in both a romance and a divorce, and reverses Kristi's instinctive satirizing of people who care about her and does it all with an abundance of wit. Ages 12 up.
