Books
The Wall and the Wing
"In a time when teen fantasy novels proliferate, this series is an exceptional stand-out." -- VOYA (starred)
In one vast and sparkling city, everyone can fly.
Almost everyone.
A few, nicknamed leadfeet, are sentenced by a trick of nature or fate to forever spend their lives closer to the ground. But one night, a girl named Gurl -- a leadfoot, an orphan, a nobody -- discovers that she can do something much better than fly.
She can become invisible.
This amazing power will help her uncover the secret mysteries of the city. But even with her newfound talent, Gurl can't seem to hide from a giant rat man with a taste for cats, a manipulative matron with a penchant for plastic surgery, and a belligerent boy named Bug.
Gradually, Gurl learns to control her power and teams up with Bug to figure out who and what she is. Their quest will take them on a wild ride through this magical city, where they'll confront chatty birds and mind-bending monkeys, an eccentric genius with a head full of grass and a pocket full of kittens, and the handsome but lethal Sweetcheeks Grabowski -- the gangster who holds the key to Gurl's past... and the world's future.
Utterly odd, fully fantasical, and seriously hilarious, The Wall and the Wing is one fantasy that will leave you breathless and keep you guessing until the last page is turned.
-- A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age
-- An ALA Best Books For Young Adults Nominee
-- A Georgia State Book Award Nominee
-- Optioned for a major animated feature by Laika Studios
"...rollicking adventure through a fantastical New York-like city...high-spirited romp." — The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
"All of this fast-paced wackiness is told with humor, often black, that will have young readers giggling even as they cheer for Gurl and Bug, the Wall and the Wing." — School Library Journal
"...the next big thing in fantasy." — The Age (Australia)
"...a most engaging read." — The Bookseller (London)
" Witty and ironic, Ruby's sharp writing propels the story to an exhilarating climax that stops only an inch away from disaster and brings all the characters and their twisted tales together in an ending that seems only fitting for an over-the-top mystery adventure." — VOYA
"A wonderful combination of the buddy novel and pure fantasy. An excellent adventure, smartly written and wholly original." — Colleen Mondor, Bookslut
The Wall and the Wing
Harpercollins, 2006
Ages 9 and up
336 pages
Discussion Guide (should be a link to a PDF)
Utterly odd, fully fantasical, and seriously hilarious, The Wall and the Wing is one fantasy that will leave you breathless and keep you guessing until the last page is turned.
Continue the story with The Chaos King!.
Also available in the UK. Amazon.co.uk
The Chaos King
Continue the story of Gurl and Bug (from The Wall and the Wing, 2006) with THE CHAOS KING! In a city filled with wonders, one girl can do the most wonderful thing of all. Gurl is the one person who can disappear at will, but since she found her parents, she's become The Richest Girl in the Universe. She may be special, but is she lucky? Her parents have forbidden her to vanish, her new school is full of snooty heiresses, she's had a growth spurt that makes her as graceful as a grizzly, and her best friend in the world, a belligerent boy named Bug, seems to have abandoned her.
But adventure is just around the corner, as a madman who calls himself The Chaos King has Gurl and Bug in his sights. In their efforts to save themselves from his insane plans, Gurl and Bug discover some of the amazing secrets of the city they love. Their journey will lead them to confront a pack of blase vampires, a living lion of stone, a disgruntled teenage poet, a candy-loving sloth, The Second Richest Girl in the Universe, a fussy man named Mr. Fuss, and finally, the brink of the unimaginable. . . .
“In a time when teen fantasy novels proliferate, this series is an exceptional stand-out." — VOYA (starred)
"Another zany adventure unfolds in a startlingly odd alternate universe showcasing Ruby's humorous narration and including characters from The Wall and the Wing (2006). Having read the first book isn't required, but would be encouraged, as this is definitely a sequel in tone and style. Grand amusement for the hip and clever." — Kirkus
"The Chaos King is a wonderful story about how being different can be infinitely preferable to being ordinarily beautiful or talented, and Ruby's off-the-wall writing style and infinite imagination make the lesson fun to learn." — Kliatt
“…fresh and quirky, both amusing and emotionally taut. This is a rare treat: an update that requires little exposition and is nearly as memorable and ironic as its predecessor.” — The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
The Chaos King
Harpercollins, 2007
Ages 9 and up
300 pages
Lily's Ghosts
NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK!!!
Thirteen-year-old Lily Crabtree is infuriated when she's forced to move again after her mother's break up with the latest loser boyfriend. Now they're broke and they'll have to spend the winter in Uncle Wes's creepy summerhouse in Cape May, New Jersey.
And the place is crawling with ghosts.
From the spiteful teenager who mistakes Lily for her high school nemesis to the restless spirit of her eccentric Uncle Max, Lily is haunted by a host of unhappy phantoms. But why are they here? And what do they want?
With the help of her new friend, local boy Vaz, Lily tries to find out. But just as they are on the verge of piecing together the mystery, a casual family dinner turns into a beachfront showdown with guests both invited and unexpected, both corporal and supernatural. And the outcome is anything but certain.
You can buy LILY'S GHOSTS at Scholastic's book fairs and in book club catalogs.
-- A 2004 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Juvenile
-- A 2003 Parent's Choice Silver Honor for Fiction
-- The Center for Children's Books Best Books of 2003 List
-- One of the Chicago Public Library's “Best of the Best”
-- One of the New York Public Library's Books for the Teenage
-- A Sunshine State Award Book
-- A Garden State Book Award Nominee
-- A Rhode Island State Award Nominee
-- Interview about the genesis of LILY'S GHOSTS:spookycyn.blogspot.com
"A slightly spooky, romantic mystery. Her often funny story, peppered with ghostly interludes, is capped by that rarest of animals: a twist ending that is totally earned. This should be a movie just so tweens and teens will come ask for the book. Place it in their hands; they will likely thank you." — Kirkus
"Ruby doesn't horrify so much as she insinuates in gracefully nuanced language that provides chilling support for the action. Make room for this first novel on the surefire ghost tale shelf." — The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
"Sharp-witted narrative and lively characterizations... intriguing" — Publisher’s Weekly
"A fast-paced, comic tale." — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Sure to delight the reader, will tickle readers' funny bones." — Detroit Free Press
"Readers will keep turning pages to get to the (surprise) ending, but also because they'll be rooting for something good to happen to Lily." — Miami Herald
"A cast of eccentric characters plays out this intriguing story. Readers will be hooked right up to the surprising ending." — School Library Journal
Lily’s Ghosts
Harpercollins, 2003
Ages 9 and up
250 pages
Lily’s Ghosts Discussion Guide
Lily’s Ghosts Excerpt (this should be a link)
About The Book
Contemporary women writers talk about Judy Blume's influence on life, love and being a girl. Includes chapters by Meg Cabot, Laura Ruby, Jennifer O'Connell, and Cara Lockwood. This collection of 24 essays edited by O'Connell ( Plan B ) pays tribute to the influence of Judy Blume and her work about coming-of-age as a girl in America. In each piece, the writer reveals what O'Connell calls her "Judy Blume moment," telling a heartfelt and revealing story that reflects the same social awkwardness and true-to-life experiences Blume conveys in her novels, from menstruation to childhood bullying to masturbation.
In "Cry, Linda, Cry," Meg Cabot recalls how Blume's book Blubber taught her how to laugh at herself, while also giving her the courage to stand up to schoolgirl bullies. Likewise, Stephanie Lessing, in "The One That Got Away," reflects on Blume's It's Not the End of the World, explaining the solace she found in its understanding of what it's like when parents divorce.
Readers who similarly found solace and support in Blume's work should relate easily to these writers through the Blumian characters and themes they evoke. Writing in the spirit of Blume, these women present their experiences as a series of personal truths: "girl moments. Woman moments, Human moments." -- Publisher's Weekly
Excerpt
The Chapter Before the First
The Professor Remembers
In a vast and sparkling city, a city at the center of the universe, one little man remembered something big.
He was very old, this little man, his full name forgotten over the years. He called himself The Professor. His specialties were numerous, and included psychology, criminology, mathematics, history, aerodynamics, zoology, and gardening. He also collected beer cans.
Other than the delivery boy who left his groceries at the back door, The Professor hadn't seen anyone in at least ten years. It was just as well, since a hair-growing experiment had left him with a head full of long green grass. Also, he didn't like clothing, so he wore ladies' snap-front house dresses and rubber flip flops with white socks. He spent much of his time fiddling in his workshop, feeding the many kittens that popped out of his pockets, and looking things up on eBay.
Today, he stood in front of his blackboard -- which was covered with mathematical equations -- tugging at a dandelion that had poked up through the lawn on his scalp. Suddenly, his eyes widened. He scrawled a few more equations. Yes! He saw it. Right there, in his many calculations.
A child.
He stared at the figures dancing across the board, his forehead creased with annoyance. How on earth he could have forgotten that such a thing, such a person, existed was beyond him. But The Professor simply didn't like people. Not their company, not their conversation, nada. Anything having to do with people made the roots of his teeth pulse with irritation. And here on his blackboard was proof that a very particular sort of person had been born into a cruel and stupid world filled with cruel and stupid people.
Frankly, The Professor wanted nothing to do with any of them.
But facts are facts and The Professor liked to keep his straight. Shaking his head at himself, he sat down at his lab table, pulled his notebook from underneath a large tabby cat, and made a few notes. Approx. once every century or so, he wrote. Wall. Usually, but not always, female.
After scribbling these notes, the Professor smoothed out a rumpled map. "One lived here," he muttered to himself, putting a dot on the map, "another here. This one was born there and moved here." When he was finished plotting points, he connected the dots, then took out a protractor to measure the angles between. Lost in thought, he tapped his teeth with his pencil. Something wasn't quite adding up. Where could this girl be?
After working for two frustrating hours, he walked over to his filing cabinets, unlocked the bottom drawer, and pulled from it what looked like a human hand mounted upright on a black marble stand. The Answer Hand. He did not like to consult the Answer Hand and very rarely did. The hand, being a hand, could not speak and was therefore difficult to comprehend (it knew the Sign Language alphabet, but had to spell everything out. And then it talked in circles). The Professor could not deny, however, that the Answer Hand often had the answers to perplexing questions, which was exactly why The Professor had purchased it (on eBay of course, from some guy in Okinawa).
He put the mounted hand on top of the table and pointed at the equations on the blackboard and then to the map. "Where?" he asked.
The fingers on the Answer Hand drummed thoughtfully on its marble base. After a few moments the hand began rambling about a number of irrelevant topics: the average rainfall in Borneo, the merits of California wine, the fat content of hot dogs.
"Focus!" barked The Professor, pointing again at the black board.
Insulted, the Answer Hand made a waving gesture at the map. When The Professor still didn't understand, the hand bent at the wrist and finger-crawled across the table, dragging its heavy base behind it. It grabbed the pencil from The Professor, scrawled a star on the map, and gave the pencil back.
There, that's where, the Hand signed. Happy now?
"I've got to hand it to you," grumbled The Professor sarcastically. He had the distinct feeling that this recent discovery was only going to cause him trouble. Plus there was the fact that one of his cats, Laverne -- strong-willed, even for a cat -- had somehow escaped the safety of his apartment and despite the flyers he had paid a service to hang around the city, no one had called. In his book, wandering girls and wayward cats added up to a whole lot of unhappiness.
Someone knocked on the door. The Professor scowled, as there hadn't been a knock on the door since, well, the last time there was a knock, possibly months before, years even. The Professor ignored it.
The knock came again, louder. "I only take deliveries Tuesdays and Sundays. Go away," grumbled The Professor. "Go, go, go."
There was a crash as somebody kicked in the door, splintering the jamb. The Professor, always peeved when he was disturbed, was especially rankled. He liked the door the way it was.
Two men strolled down the steps leading to The Professor's rooms. One was handsome, with thick gold hair and a rosy complexion. The other was impossibly tall and dark, a vicious and terrible scar like a huge zipper running diagonally across his face. Both looked familiar, but The Professor couldn't remember where he'd seen them before. A book? A newspaper? And there was something odd about the way the scarred man moved. Not walking as much as drifting, or floating.
"Professor," said the handsome one cheerfully. "I hope you don't mind the intrusion."
They were, now that he'd had a few moments to consider it, rather intimidating. "I have important work to do," said The Professor, sounding not the least bit frightened, though his knobby knees had gone weak as egg noodles.
The handsome man stared pointedly at his head. "I see that you have some dandelion issues." He patted the pockets of his overcoat. "I might have a weed whacker around here somewhere."
"What do you want?" The Professor made more notes in his book: Two scary men. Need weapon. Sharpen pencil?
The handsome man hesitated, as if waiting for The Professor to say something else. "I'm being rude," he said. "I'm Sy Grabowski."
How do you do, Sweetcheeks? the Answer Hand signed politely.
The Professor dropped his pencil to the floor. "Sweetcheeks Grabowski?"
"In the flesh," said the man, obviously proud that his reputation had proceeded him. "This is my associate, Mr. John."
"Odd John," said the Professor. Odd John grinned. The Professor could see his teeth were tiny, like a child's. And he could also see that the scar was not like a zipper, it was a zipper. The silver tab on his forehead glittered when he moved. The Professor decided he should not like Mr. John to unzip his face. No. That wouldn't be pleasant, he was sure of it.
Sweetcheeks reached out and plucked the dandelion from the top of The Professor's head, making the little man wince. "We're a little curious."
"Yes, you are. Um, I mean, what about?" said The Professor. He was trying not to focus on the Answer Hand, which was busily erasing the star it had marked on the map and putting another star somewhere in Brooklyn.
"About your research, of course." Sweetcheeks eyed the cats warily, his lip curling up with disgust. "I thought these animals were rare."
"They are," The Professor said, and pulled a rambunctious marmalade kitten out of the pocket of his housedress. "Just not here." He placed the kitten directly on top of the map, obscuring what had been drawn on it.
"Hmmmm" said Sweetcheeks, before turning the notebook around to read what The Professor had scribbled there. He smiled when he came to the last bit about the scary men.
"I do lots of research," said The Professor. "What are you interested in? Zoology? Psychology?"
"Oh, a scrap of this, a shred of that," Sweetcheeks said. "I'm especially interested in this curious little thing that happens once every century or more. This very odd thing. Do you know the thing I'm talking about?"
"Yes," said The Professor, wondering how the man had found out about it. He sighed. "You want to know when it happened, I suppose."
"I already know when it happened. I need to know where and I need to know who. And," he said, turning the notebook back to face The Professor. "I need to know now."
"Who? I don't know who it is," said The Professor. "How would I know that until she shows herself? Er, I mean, until she doesn't show herself, rather. As for where, I can't be sure"
"You can't?" said Sweetcheeks. Using his thumb and forefinger, he lifted the tiny kitten from The Professor's map. "Look on this map, John. A star!"
"Oh, that?" said The Professor. "You mustn't pay attention to that. That map marks the sites of vampire nests around the city, that's all."
"Vampires? Tsk, tsk, Professor. I would think that you would be able to come up with something more creative than that." Sweetcheeks took the map, folded it, and slipped it into his breast pocket. "That takes care of where. Now I need to know who."
"I'm telling you, that map is meaningless to you."
"I think The Professor needs a little encouragement, don't you Mr. John?"
Uh oh, signed the Answer Hand.
"But" stammered The Professor.
"Please," said Sweetcheeks. "I know that you're a genius. Everyone knows that. I also know that given the proper motivation, you'll find a way to get the information I need, won't he, Mr. John?"
The big man smiled with his baby teeth, and clasped the silver tab of his zipper, drawing downward ever so slowly.
The Professor had been correct.
Not pleasant. Not pleasant at all.
About the Book
Does every second wife look like Julia Roberts? Lu Klein certainly doesn't, and her life is anything but glamorous. When she married a man with children, Lu had no idea that she was also marrying his shrewish ex-wife, Beatrix. And Beatrix had no idea that making a new home with her second husband would mean welcoming her wicked teenage stepdaughter, Liv. And Liv's mother Roxie had no idea that so many new and exciting boyfriends could make her long for the stable life she and her ex had too eagerly left behind.
In this tightly interconnected collection of ten short stories, author Laura Ruby chronicles the progress of Lu, Beatrix, Roxie and their various steps and exes as they take the perilous plunge into the maelstrom of the so-called "blended family."
Both ruefully funny and wickedly insightful, I'M NOT JULIA ROBERTS offers finely-observed, honest and affecting takes on kids, stepkids, divorce, remarriage...and the movie Stepmom.
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
Just after six in the evening, with the January sky glowering through the windows like a new bruise, Lily decided to throw Uncle Max in the closet.
It wasn't her painting. It wasn't even her house. But it was a terrible picture. Even her mother thought so, and he was her mother's uncle.
"Oh that awful thing," her mother had said. "Just ignore it. Don't even look at it."
"How can you not look at it?" In the portrait, Uncle Max was just a little older than Lily, but his color was odd and gray and faded, as if he'd spent some time in a washing machine. Pinkish lips flashed a thin zipper of teeth, like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. The eyes, though, the eyes were the worst. Lily thought that if she turned off the lights, the eyes would green up the dark, twirl like pinwheels in the sockets.
"If I looked like that, there's no way I'd let anyone paint a picture of me."
Lily's mother waved her hand. "What does he care? He's dead."
For Lily, it was bad enough that she and her mother had been kicked out of the big, white house in Montclair, New Jersey just that morning. It was bad enough that they had to call Uncle Wesley -- who Lily's mother hadn't seen in years and who was the only family they had left -- and beg for a place to stay. And it was bad enough that Lily had to endure four hours on a cramped and wheezing bus with everything she owned stuffed into duffel bags and her cat, Julep, howling like a zoo monkey the whole way.
She was not going to spend the next few months in this strange old house staring at some goggle-eyed, fish-faced dead boy.
She settled on an empty closet in the hall just past the huge staircase. She set the frame on the closet floor, leaning the painting face first against the wall.
"Goodnight, Uncle Max," she said, and slammed the door shut.
She did not feel any better.
Lily shoved her hands in her pockets and stalked into the living room, or the parlor, as her mother had called it. She couldn't help but notice how pretty the room was -- all high ceilings and polished floors, antique chairs with their whimsical animal feet -- like the summer home of some duchess. But pretty, Lily thought, was deceiving. Pretty meant Look but don't touch. Pretty meant Mine but not yours.
The front door belched a cranky moan and her mother's exasperated voice rang out. "Lord, Lily! You didn't even bring the suitcases upstairs yet!"
"I was looking around."
"It's nice, don't you think?"
Lily shrugged. "If you like museums."
"Oh, well, don't you worry about me," her mother said. "I'll just lug these four-hundred-pound grocery bags all by myself."
Lily helped carry the bags in the kitchen and empty the contents on the counter. "Where's the milk?"
Her mother pressed her palms to her temples. "It's official. I'm senile."
"You can always wait until tomorrow morning."
"I need it for my coffee. You know how I get if I don't have my coffee." Lily's mother tossed the few items she had bought into the refrigerator. "I won't bother taking off my coat. You wouldn't believe how cold it is out there."
Lily scowled at her mother's orange cape, the loud, patchwork skirt peeking out from beneath it. "It's January, Mom. It's supposed to be cold, isn't it?"
"I just didn't think it would be this cold."
"You never think it will be this cold," Lily said. Or this bad or this hard or this long.
"What are you talking about?"
"Never mind."
Her mother wandered into the dining room and Lily followed. "Did I tell you that the house has been in the family for more than a hundred years?"
"You told me." Lily took in the china cabinet with its bellyful of crystal, the chandelier that glittered like a small universe over the table. "If this is a summer house, what's the winter house look like?"
"Bigger. More expensive shiny stuff."
"So is your Uncle Wesley a millionaire or something?"
Her mother laughed. "Or something." She ran her hand across the surface of the table, the bracelets she had designed herself jangling on her thin arm. "I don't think Uncle Wes has changed anything since you were little." She smiled. "And it's been a long time since you were little."
Lily inspected the split ends of her long, cinnamon-stick hair. She was used to being as tall as her mother, as tall as an adult. She was thirteen, but sometimes Lily felt like an adult, the way she imagined an adult would feel. Tired. Disappointed.
Her mother sighed. "I can see antiques are not our thing. Did you check if we have cable?" She marched down the hallway past the stairs, and into the TV room, Lily trailing behind.
Her mother plucked the remote off the top of the TV and flicked on the machine. "More channels than a teenager could hope for," she said. She looked past Lily to the wall. "Lily? Where's the painting?"
"What painting?" Lily made her own eyes big and round, batting her eyelashes.
"Uh huh. So innocent. You know what painting." Her mother pointed to the empty space over the mantle.
"Oh, that painting. I put it in the closet."
"Lily!"
"It's bad. You said so yourself."
"But I didn't say that you could take it down!"
"Nothing's going to happen to it."
Her mother turned off the TV, sighed at the unadorned wall. "I suppose the closet won't hurt it."
"That's what I thought," Lily said.
Her mother looked from the wall to Lily, Lily to the wall, her expression morphing into her sad clown face, her I'm sorry face. Lily hoped her mother wouldn't try to hug her.
But instead of reaching for Lily, her mother hid her hands in the voluminous folds of the orange cloak. "I promise that this is going to be OK, OK?"
Lily nodded, thinking that she had once heard a bird with a call just like that, a polite bird that asked OK? OK? Is it OK if I eat this birdseed? Is it OK if I poop on your head?
A thin, faraway mewl caught her mother's attention, and she pulled her hands out from the folds in the cloak, smoothed her hair from her face. "You can't keep the cat in that box forever. We'll be here till June, at least. Then we'll get our own place. Maybe even on the beach. How does that sound?"
It sounded like another one of her mother's fantasies, but it was no use telling her. In the dining room, Lily and her mother found Julep looking small and doomed in her cat carrier. Lily opened the latch and the Siamese stepped out, blinking her blue eyes, poking the air with her wise nose.
Lily stroked the cat's silky fur, but Julep did not press her head into the curve of Lily's palm the way she always did. The cat stared at the ceiling.
"What's up there, Julep?"
Julep vaulted onto one of the chairs, and then onto the table. She padded to the middle of the table, sat beneath the chandelier.
Lily's mother leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. "What's she doing?"
"I don't know."
Julep made a strange sound in her throat, a cross between a meow and moan. She rose up on her hind legs and batted at something with a front paw.
"Oh, that's not too creepy," said her mother. "Yikes."
"Maybe there's a spider," Lily said, though she didn't see any spiders. She scratched at the back of her own neck, where the tiny hairs prickled.
"I can't even watch," Lily's mother grabbed the cat. "She shouldn't be on the table anyway," she said, and tossed her to the floor. Julep turned and skidded out of the dining room, down the hallway and out of sight.
Lily looked up at the chandelier. The crystals winked.
"She's just a little skittish. We're all a little skittish." Her mother clasped both hands over her head, and stretched. "I'll be right back with the milk," she said, and strode down the hall toward the front door. When she reached the staircase, she turned. "You know, it smells exactly the same. Like lemon. And tea with mint." She glanced up the staircase as if she expected someone to appear at the top.
"Mom?"
Her mother turned. "Yeah?"
"How did your Uncle Max die?"
If her mother didn't want to answer a question, she did one of three things: smiled, shrugged, pursed her lips as if she were blowing a kiss.
Now she made her kissy face. "Why don't you go upstairs and pick a bedroom? I'll be fifteen minutes, tops."
Lily watched as the door swung shut, then grabbed as many bags as she could carry and dragged them to the second floor. All of the bedrooms were decorated with jumbles of fussy-looking furniture; Lily chose one for herself by putting her duffels on the floor by the closet. She didn't bother to unpack.
She sat on the musty bed, hands knotted on her lap. At the house in Montclair, in the corner of her yellow bedroom, there was a microscope that she'd had to leave behind, a microscope that her mother's boyfriend, The Computer Geek, had bought Lily for her birthday. Lily loved to look at things under it, an eyelash, a bit of dust, a mosquito. She unclasped her hands and rubbed the velvet bedcover. Her microscope was gone. Her friends were gone. The yellow room in Montclair, gone.
Lily felt the tears welling up in her eyes and she swiped at them, squinting them away. She could hear the wind wailing outside, high and thin and human: Help meeee! Help meeee! She could smell the faint tang of lemon, and tea with mint. She could see Julep crouched beneath the dresser, eyes florescent with fear. When the phone rang Lily pounced on it, realizing after she gulped her eager hellos that there was no one there.
About the Book
"Good Girls is Judy Blume's Forever for savvy and sophisticated 21st century readers..."
-- Michael Cart , author and former YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) president
"Fasten your seatbelts! Good Girls never lets up. Harrowing, honest, poignant, and wickedly funny, Laura Ruby's so-good novel comes out swinging, challenging the stereotypes of what it means to be "good" while exploring what it means to be true."
--Libba Bray, New York Times Bestselling author of A Great and Terrible Beauty
Good Girls is:
--An autumn 2006 Book Sense Pick
--A Reading Rants Top Ten Books for 2006
--One of the New York Public Library's Books for the Teenage
The Good Girls website: www.goodgirlsbooks.com
(From the jacket)
Some people would say this is the story of a photograph. How it was taken, and what happened to me after the whole world saw it.
And it is.
But it's also the story of a lot of other things. A boy so beautiful he's like a punch to the throat. Best friends -- the outrageous old ones and the out-of-the-blue new. It's about fishnets and eyebrow rings and a chick named Hamlet. Kick lines at lumber yards and conga lines at prom. Crying in cars and gazing at stars. Mistakes, misunderstandings and misconceptions. Good girls, bad boys, and everyone in between.
This is a story about love.
So, look at the picture all you want.
I am so much more than what you see.
Author's Note: Because of some frank scenes, this book was intended for high school age students and older. If you're wondering if this book is right for you, ask your mom what she thinks. No, really. : ) And click on the "press" section to read advance blurbs on the book that address the content.