Slingshot

A Novel

By: Mercedes Helnwein

Narrated by: Jesse Vilinsky

Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's Summary

"Narrator Jesse Vilinsky masterfully connects listeners to the awkward nervous energy of teens.... Vilinsky shines with breathless trepidation as Gracie grows from heartbreak, jealousy, and self-realization. At times, it's hard to listen to the raw emotions Vilinsky voices - which also make this audiobook hard to put down." (AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner)

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

A Macmillan Audio production from Wednesday Books 

"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) 

©2021 Mercedes Helnwein (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

Last two hours are just a waste

There's no real ending here. The first 9 hours are really great and then it's like the write ran out of stuff to stay and there was no ending. The ending made it a melodramic mess. It was all really well done before then two hours of rambling.

Stupid mistakes and heartaches. Ah, Young Love!

I assume the most important requirement for A Young Adult novel would be a school? As in, high school sucks. I didn’t spend much time in high school. I didn’t get the full experience. This could be why I love “coming of age stories”. Or it could be that there is so much more passion in first discovering Who we are as individuals and figuring out how to deal with new emotions and embarrassing decisions. This story has it all. Brutally Honest insight mixed with hilarious subtle humor. Heart wrenching teenage emotions, teenage rebellion and teenage love with all its secrets and discoveries.

balm

I loved this book. I sometimes have searing embarrassment of how romantic of a teen I was.....and I'm 32 now. This book helped me be a little more proud of that time period, which is great cause I have plenty of other things to be more worried about anyways lol. definitely look forward to anything Mercedes writes in the future.

Everything I love in YA.

This story is superb. The main character's voice grabbed me right off the bat, and didn't let go the entire time. Gracie is delightfully sarcastic, with a razor wit, and a gigantic heart that aches through the pages. This book is not shy about depicting teens in all of their melodramatic, overwrought, perfectly imperfect messiness. I have a feeling that this will be a favorite of mine for a long time to come.