This One Time with Julia
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
After Joe's parents died, he stopped growing up. He doesn't know where his money comes from. His diet consists primarily of cheeseburgers from McDonald's. He plays basketball on the level of a pro, but he has only ever played on the streets. Then his brother disappears, and Julia shows up. Joe falls in love with Julia as quickly as his twin brother, Alvin, did. And like Alvin did before him, he runs away with Julia to her parents' hotel. There, he's so blinded by her seductive, dysfunctional family that he can't see the truth of his brother's disappearance ...until he accidentally stumbles upon Alvin's killer.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lampson's debut is narrated by an 18-year-old with an Asperger's-like condition and a tenuous understanding of the world. Following the death of their parents, Joe and his brothers raised themselves. Since his fraternal twin, Alvin, abandoned him for a girl named Julia, Joe has frittered away his inheritance on poker games while cutting his GED prep class, eating nothing but McDonald's cheeseburgers, and avoiding his pompous older brother, Marcus. When Alvin returns, he arranges to take a sailing trip with Joe, but then vanishes. Beautiful, anxious Julia soon shows up, persuading Joe to join her on a trip to Tennessee, where Joe finds work as pool boy at Julia's family's hotel. As Joe acquires new life skills and falls for Julia, her family's nefarious nature comes to light as does the truth about Alvin's disappearance. Refreshingly, Lampson avoids making Joe's condition the story's focus, instead highlighting the emotional isolation of multiple individuals and creating a cinematic effect through well-conceived dialogue, mature characterizations, and a noir-tinged atmosphere. A raw and darkly poignant novel about lost souls. Ages 12 up.
