Rockstar Book Tours is hosting a month long event for a new young adult contemporary set around two teens who were babies during the September 11th attacks.
Title: HOPE & OTHER PUNCHLINES
Author: Julie Buxbaum
Pub. Date: May 7, 2019
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Formats: Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook
Pages: 320
SUMMARY: The New York Times bestselling author of Tell Me Three Things and What
to Say Next delivers a poignant and hopeful novel about resilience and
reinvention, first love and lifelong friendship, the legacies of loss, and the
stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.
Sometimes looking to the past helps you find your future.
Abbi Hope Goldstein is like every other teenager, with a few smallish
exceptions: her famous alter ego, Baby Hope, is the subject of internet memes,
she has asthma, and sometimes people spontaneously burst into tears when they
recognize her. Abbi has lived almost her entire life in the shadow of the
terrorist attacks of September 11. On that fateful day, she was captured in
what became an iconic photograph: in the picture, Abbi (aka "Baby Hope")
wears a birthday crown and grasps a red balloon; just behind her, the South
Tower of the World Trade Center is collapsing.
Now, fifteen years later, Abbi is desperate for anonymity and decides
to spend the summer before her seventeenth birthday incognito as a counselor at
Knights Day Camp two towns away. She's psyched for eight weeks in the company
of four-year-olds, none of whom have ever heard of Baby Hope.
Too bad Noah Stern, whose own world was irrevocably shattered on that
terrible day, has a similar summer plan. Noah believes his meeting Baby Hope is
fate. Abbi is sure it's a disaster. Soon, though, the two team up to ask
difficult questions about the history behind the Baby Hope photo. But is either
of them ready to hear the answers?
REVIEW: The main reason that I wanted to review this book is because I have never read a fiction book centered around the 9/11 attacks. I love reading fiction about WW1 and WW2 and other major historical events, but I guess the reason that I have never read anything about 9/11 is because it is still so new and I feel that it would be offensive or tacky to make anything fictional around that day.
I gave it a chance and I really enjoyed this book. It wasn't distasteful and it didn't undermine the lives that were ruined, the people who lost their lives or those who live with survivor's guilt. This book did have me searching the web for the Baby Hope picture that the author did indeed make up. It kind of reminded me of the Lana picture from the first season of Smallville. I had to throw in this pop culture reference because this book had a ton of recent pop culture references.
I was also taken down memory lane back to September 11th. I was 10 years old and in 5th Grade. My teachers were in a panic all day and were very distracted. We weren't told what had happened until it was time for us to go home and they said that our parents would be having a major discussion with us that night. All they told us was that there was an attack on New York.
I went home and watched the news and started crying because they showed people jumping out of the buildings and the towers collapsing. Also because my mom told me that our annual trip to Turner Field to watch the Atlanta Braves play was cancelled and I was devastated. When I said it still feels new, it is because it is hard to believe that it is 18 years this year and I can remember vividly that day in my 5th grade classroom.
Giveaway Details:
3 winners will receive a finished copy
of HOPE & OTHER PUNCHLINES, US Only.
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Tour Schedule:
Week One:
Week Two:
Week Three:
Week Four:
Week Five:
