Tim Federle is “a prolific scribe whose breezy wit isn’t bound to a single genre” (Huffington Post). Tim’s award-winning novels include The New York Times Notable Books The Great American Whatever and the Nate series—which Lin-Manuel Miranda called “a wonderful evocation of what it’s like to be a theater kid.” Tim cowrote both the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Tuck Everlasting, and the Golden Globe–nominated Best Animated Feature Ferdinand, starring John Cena and Kate McKinnon. A native of San Francisco who grew up in Pittsburgh, Tim now divides his time between New York and the internet (@TimFederle).
The Great American Whatever
by Tim Federle
Paperback
(Reprint)
- ISBN-13: 9781481404105
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
- Publication date: 04/25/2017
- Edition description: Reprint
- Pages: 304
- Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)
- Lexile: 860L (what's this?)
- Age Range: 14Years
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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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Annabeth and Quinn were sibling filmmakers—she the director, he the screenwriter—and Quinn, 16, dreamed that they would become famous collaborators like the Wachowskis, Ephrons, or Coens. Then Annabeth died on an icy road. Six months later, Quinn’s mother is still grief-stricken, and Quinn has holed up in his bedroom. Into this stasis arrives best friend Geoff, who prods him to take a needed shower and get out of the house. Quinn tells part of his rebound story in screenplay form, but the key plot element is his flirtation with Amir, a college guy he meets at a party: the possibility of love (and sex and romance) makes him realize that there’s still a future to look forward to. Federle’s first venture into YA shares the same wry sensibility and theatrical underpinnings of his middle-grade books, while freeing him up to make some edgier jokes (“ ‘A little less tongue,’ he slurs, which was precisely the note I was going to give him”). The mix of vulnerability, effervescence, and quick wit in Quinn’s narration will instantly endear him to readers. Ages 14–up. Agent: Brenda Bowen, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (Mar.)
Gr 9 Up—Aspiring screenwriter Quinn Roberts is practically Hollywood-bound until a car accident takes the life of his sister, soul mate, and creative partner, Annabeth. In his grief and disorientation, Quinn is forced to reexamine everything he thought he knew about his craft, his family, and his heart's desire. A voice-driven story that is sad, funny, endearing, and ultimately uplifting.
Sixteen-year-old Quinn Roberts is officially hiding from the world. Six months after the death of his beloved sister, Annabeth, Quinn's house remains preserved as a shrine to the father who walked out on his family voluntarily and the daughter whose exit was anything but. "Without the vision and silent encouragement of [his] sister," Quinn is ready to renounce his dreams of writing screenplays, yet he cannot help but view the world cinematically. The juxtaposition of Quinn's scripted version of events with what actually occurs enables readers to experience the flawed goofiness of the real world while enjoying Quinn's ideal of how it should be. In his first novel for teens, Federle (Better Nate Than Ever, 2013, etc.) crafts a poignant and thoroughly convincing portrait of a teenager who is acerbic and self-deprecating, astute enough to write piercing observations about his own life yet too self-involved to discern obvious truths about those closest to him. Quinn's supporting cast of characters, both minor and major, are wonderfully flawed and nuanced, from Amir, the college boy upon whom Quinn has a crush, to Mrs. Roberts, who cannot bear to throw away her deceased daughter's favorite junk food. Quinn's epiphanies about his sister and himself are distinctively less cinematic than he would like them to be. The journey he takes to arrive at them, however, is hauntingly authentic and consummately page-turning. A Holden Caulfield for a new generation. (Fiction. 15 & up)