Slingshot: A Novel (Hardcover)

Slingshot: A Novel By Mercedes Helnwein Cover Image
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Spring 2021 Kids Indie Next List


“Irreverent and rip-off-the-bandage honest, this book is the coming-of-age story of the moment. It’s uncomfortable, messy, and everything a book about two teenagers falling in love for the first time should be. And it’s all that while being a beautifully singular reminder of how letting people into your life can heal you, break you, but also reveal you. This book made me frustrated, swoony, nostalgic, and reflective. I’ll have Grace Welles in my head for a lifetime.”
— Claire Phelan, Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, WA

Description


"Helnwein debuts in striking fashion... The writing, especially the dialogue, is magnetic, honest, and brimming with caustic wit... [an] enrapturing take on the intense highs and lows of teenage love." Booklist (Starred Review)

"Wildly real and bursting with all the romance and pain of coming into oneself." —Kirkus (Starred Review)

"Helnwein frankly conveys the joy, fear, and awkwardness of an all-consuming first love, poignantly depicting Gracie’s growth: particularly the hard-won knowledge that she can exist 'just by the sheer force of herself,' and the grace she learns to show herself and others." —Publishers Weekly

"One of Eight 2021 YA Books To TBR ASAP" —BookRiot


Mercedes Helnwein's Slingshot is an exciting debut contemporary young adult novel perfect for fans of Rainbow Rowell and Mary H. K. Choi

"I didn’t think it was going to be anything like this when I finally fell in love. I thought it was going to be pretty simple. Like, I’d love someone and they’d love me. I thought that’s the way it worked.”

Grace Welles is stuck at a third-tier boarding school in the swamps of Florida, where her method of survival is a strict, self-imposed loneliness. And it works. Her crap attitude keeps people away because without friends, there are fewer to lose.

But when she accidentally saves the new kid, Wade Scholfield, from being beaten up, everything about her precariously balanced loner world collapses and, in order to find her footing again, she has no choice but to discover a completely new way to exist.

Because with Wade around, school rules are optional, weird is okay, and conversations about wormholes can lead to make-out sessions that disrupt any logical stream of thought. Nothing’s perfect, but that’s not the point. When they're together everything seems uncomplicated in a way that Grace knows is not possible.

Except it is.

So why does Grace crush Wade’s heart into a million pieces?

Acidly funny and compulsive readable, this debut is a story about two people finding each other and then screwing it all up. See also: soulmate, stupidity, sex, friendship, bad poetry, very bad decisions and all the indignities of being in love for the first time.

About the Author


Mercedes Helnwein is a visual artist and writer. She was born in Vienna, Austria, and grew up in Germany, Ireland, and partially the US and the UK. Instead of going to college she moved to L.A. where she began putting on art shows with her friends and selling her drawings. Her obsession with writing began at age ten when she wrote her first short story for a school assignment – The Celery Stick Who Became President. She currently lives and works in L.A. and Ireland. Slingshot is her debut novel.

Praise For…


* A Spring 2021 Indie Next Pick *

FROLIC, "Top 10 YA Reads for April 2021"

ROMPER, "30 Best New Spring Releases"

LA MAG, "5 YA Novels We Can’t Wait to Read This Spring"

"Helnwein frankly conveys the joy, fear, and awkwardness of an all-consuming first love, poignantly depicting Gracie’s growth: particularly the hard-won knowledge that she can exist 'just by the sheer force of herself,' and the grace she learns to show herself and others." —Publishers Weekly

"Helnwein debuts in striking fashion... The writing, especially the dialogue, is magnetic, honest, and brimming with caustic wit... [an] enrapturing take on the intense highs and lows of teenage love." —Booklist (Starred Review)

"Wildly real and bursting with all the romance and pain of coming into oneself." —Kirkus (Starred Review)

"All the terror and wonder of that first true love, masterfully detailed with true emotional rigor and blinding wit. My fifteen-year-old self wants to scream into a pillow with joy." —David Yoon, New York Times bestselling author of Frankly in Love

"Glittering and irreverent, Helnwein has crafted an iconic character for the ages in sharp-tongued iconoclast, Gracie Welles. Beautiful prose, characters that breathe, and a voice so thick you could swim in it—I am fully here for this book." —David Arnold, New York Times bestselling author of The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik and Mosquitoland



Product Details
ISBN: 9781250253002
ISBN-10: 1250253004
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Publication Date: April 27th, 2021
Pages: 352
Language: English