This is the Part Where You Laugh
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
"So real it hurts."—David Arnold, New York Times bestselling author of Mosquitoland.
A summer of basketball, first love, and the friends who've got your back when life gets crazy, set in a trailer park in small town America.
Travis never gives up.
Not when his mom takes off.
Not when he gets suspended from basketball.
Not when he cracks four ribs jumping off a bridge to impress a girl.
Not when he and his best friend Creature get into trouble deeper than they know how to handle.
From acclaimed author Peter Brown Hoffmeister comes a painfully-funny, sometimes-crushing story of growing up, making mistakes, and pressing on, against the odds.
"In my mind the best storytellers walk that high tight wire between tragedy and comedy. This Is the Part Where You Laugh is exactly the part where you laugh. And ache. This is a really good book!"—Chris Crutcher
"A courageous novel. Incandescent and unflinching." —Jeff Zentner, author of The Serpent King
"A raw offbeat novel with an abundance of honesty and heart." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Hoffmeister crushes it. There is blood and truth on every page." —Estelle Laure, author of This Raging Light
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this tragicomic YA debut from adult author Hoffmeister (Let Them Be Eaten by Bears), a young man contends with anger, family troubles, and romance over a few increasingly chaotic months. Travis's summer goals are simple: improve his basketball skills, stay out of trouble, and try to cheer up his grandmother, who's dying from cancer. He also hangs out with his best friend Creature, spends time with a mercurial girl named Natalie, and searches for his drug-addicted mother in the homeless camps around the area. But the harder Travis tries, the more things spiral out of control, and when Creature runs afoul of a vindictive gang member, it puts everything into a new perspective. Hoffmeister's coming-of-age story is both profane and profound as Travis eloquently puts it early on, "Fuck being here in this trailer park and waiting to die. Fuck cancer." Excerpts from Creature's work in progress, a combination history/erotic romance entitled The Pervert's Guide to Russian Princesses, give the story a surreal yet poignant edge. The result is a raw, offbeat novel with an abundance of honesty and heart. Ages 14 up.