The Great American Whatever
Books | Young Adult Fiction / Performing Arts / Film
3.5
(82)
Tim Federle
From the award-winning author of Five, Six, Seven, Nate! and Better Nate Than Ever comes “a Holden Caulfield for a new generation” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).Quinn Roberts is a sixteen-year-old smart aleck and Hollywood hopeful whose only worry used to be writing convincing dialogue for the movies he made with his sister Annabeth. Of course, that was all before—before Quinn stopped going to school, before his mom started sleeping on the sofa…and before the car accident that changed everything. Enter: Geoff, Quinn’s best friend who insists it’s time that Quinn came out—at least from hibernation. One haircut later, Geoff drags Quinn to his first college party, where instead of nursing his pain, he meets a guy—okay, a hot guy—and falls, hard. What follows is an upside-down week in which Quinn begins imagining his future as a screenplay that might actually have a happily-ever-after ending—if, that is, he can finally step back into the starring role of his own life story.
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Author
Tim Federle
Pages
288
Publisher
Simon and Schuster
Published Date
2016-03-29
ISBN
1481404113 9781481404112
Ratings
Google: 5
Community ReviewsSee all
"Really enjoyed the voice the writer brought to this story. Story itself had lots of good moments but overall felt disappointing to me. Will have to muse on that more, I think. Twist/reveal 3/4 way through the book felt uncomfortable to me, honestly, and tarnished some of the characters--though that may just have been the skill of the writer writing Quinn's first person POV and really getting us into his head. <br/><br/>Depiction of a young queer teen was good with the internal stuff, but I didn't love the use of the 'we all knew you were gay' by the majority of the ensemble. Also felt a bit uncomfortable with the age/experience gap between Quinn and his love interest. It was explored in the ways it might be iffy in the book, but not enough for me. I understand that having one's first relationship/sex with an older person is a common, true experience for many queer people growing up, but as this was a book written fairly recently and with the coming generation in mind, I'm not sure if perpetuating it as a 'rite of passage' is a great idea. <br/><br/>I would certainly read something by this author again, and hope for a stronger story to go with the strong character voice."
Jamie