Found! All-time awesomely depressing YA novel?
Someone helpfully suggested Hannah Moskowitz's Break, which Publishers Weekly describes as follows:
"Seventeen-year-old Jonah is on a quest to break every bone in his body, and his best friend Naomi is there to film each attempt, as he crashes his skateboard or dives into an empty pool. His 16-year-old brother, Jesse, has deadly food allergies and their parents aren't vigilant about keeping the house safe, so that job has fallen to Jonah, who is weighed down by the responsibility. He breaks his bones so that as he heals he becomes stronger ("It's sort of a natural bionics thing. Break a leg, grow a better leg. Break a body, grow a better body"), a belief treated with almost religious reverence from some, like Naomi (who calls it a "revolution"), but that eventually results in his being institutionalized."
Deadly allergies! Institutionalization! The deadly collision of a symbolic quest with actual pavement AND, I bet, lectures about the media-driven modern world of reality TV! Since it sounds like it has everything but a monkey, I have supplied that in an icon.
Has anyone actually read this? How is it? Could I raise money for Pakistan or the Virginia Avenue Project by reading it myself?
Break
PS. Yeah, yeah, I am procrastinating like mad, hence the semi-manic posting. In ten minutes, have to go teach two lessons, then rush to the beach to cast bread upon the waters, and all the time have a career-related Sekrit Thing of Probable Unhappiness looming over my head like a large, heavy, depressing, issue-driven YA novel. In verse.
This entry was originally posted at http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/856406.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
"Seventeen-year-old Jonah is on a quest to break every bone in his body, and his best friend Naomi is there to film each attempt, as he crashes his skateboard or dives into an empty pool. His 16-year-old brother, Jesse, has deadly food allergies and their parents aren't vigilant about keeping the house safe, so that job has fallen to Jonah, who is weighed down by the responsibility. He breaks his bones so that as he heals he becomes stronger ("It's sort of a natural bionics thing. Break a leg, grow a better leg. Break a body, grow a better body"), a belief treated with almost religious reverence from some, like Naomi (who calls it a "revolution"), but that eventually results in his being institutionalized."
Deadly allergies! Institutionalization! The deadly collision of a symbolic quest with actual pavement AND, I bet, lectures about the media-driven modern world of reality TV! Since it sounds like it has everything but a monkey, I have supplied that in an icon.
Has anyone actually read this? How is it? Could I raise money for Pakistan or the Virginia Avenue Project by reading it myself?
Break
PS. Yeah, yeah, I am procrastinating like mad, hence the semi-manic posting. In ten minutes, have to go teach two lessons, then rush to the beach to cast bread upon the waters, and all the time have a career-related Sekrit Thing of Probable Unhappiness looming over my head like a large, heavy, depressing, issue-driven YA novel. In verse.
This entry was originally posted at http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/856406.html. Please comment there using OpenID.