The Movie Version
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A whip-smart, heart-wrenching debut YA novel about first love, first loss, and filmmaking that will delight fans of Jandy Nelson and Jennifer Niven
In the movie version of Amelia’s life, the roles have always been clear. Her older brother, Toby: definitely the Star. As popular with the stoners as he is with the cheerleaders, Toby is someone you’d pay ten bucks to watch sweep Battle of the Bands and build a “beach party” in the bathroom. As for Amelia? She’s Toby Anderson’s Younger Sister. She’s perfectly happy to watch Toby’s hijinks from the sidelines, when she’s not engrossed in one of her elaborately themed Netflix movie marathons.
But recently Toby’s been acting in a very non-movie-version way. He’s stopped hanging out with his horde of friends and started obsessively journaling and disappearing for days at a time. Amelia doesn’t know what’s happened to her awesome older brother, or who this strange actor is that’s taken his place. And there’s someone else pulling at her attention: a smart, cute new boyfriend who wants to know the real Amelia—not Toby’s Sidekick. Amelia feels adrift without her star, but to best help Toby—and herself—it might be time to cast a new role: Amelia Anderson, leading lady.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
High school junior Amelia Anderson is always comparing events in her life to what their "movie version" counterparts would be, joined in her habit by her equally film-obsessed older brother, Toby. Toby is the star of the family, and Amelia looks up to him like no one else, so when he begins acting strangely she panics and starts covering for his increasingly disturbing behavior. After Toby is diagnosed with schizophrenia, Amelia and the rest of her family are devastated, even as she embarks on a tentative relationship with Epstein, a jam-band-loving Manhattanite she met during a summer babysitting gig in Montauk. Debut author Wunsch gives Amelia a powerful voice, alternately raw, vulnerable, and witty in its honesty about everything from sex ("I don't even feel bad that I give my very first blow job right on the couch where my grandmother watches the evening news") to family events spinning out of control. With a memorable, full-of-feeling narrator at its helm, this moving exploration of the effects of mental illness and a family's new normal marks Wunsch as a writer to watch. Ages 14 up.
