For Ages
12 to 99

The New York Times bestselling author of Tell Me Three Things and What to Say Next delivers a poignant and hopeful novel about resilience and reinvention, first love and lifelong friendship, the legacies of loss, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.

"A luminous, lovely story about a girl who builds a future from the ashes of her past." --KATHLEEN GLASGOW, New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces

Sometimes looking to the…

An Excerpt fromHope and Other Punch Lines

Even back in my fairy-tale days, I never liked those inevitable opening words—once upon a time. Their bookend—happily ever after—at least made sense to me. The main character ended up happy forever. That was a no-brainer and nonnegotiable, the absolute bare minimum we could expect from a good story.
 
The once upon a time, though? Let’s just say I had questions. What “time” were they talking about—Today? Yesterday? Tomorrow?—and what did it mean to be upon it? I was uncomfortable with its free-floating slipperiness. It felt like a cheap literary dodge.
 
I’ve long outgrown fairy tales, but I still have trouble with the concept of time. Maybe it’s because my own life has always been an exception to the rule: I lived once when I was supposed to die. And so this story, the one I’m telling you now, has two distinct beginnings.
There’s the one that starts with, and feel free to groan, a once upon a time. Or at least, it feels that way to me because I don’t remember it…

Under the Cover