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Summary
Summary
"A gorgeous, insightful, big-hearted joy of a book." -- Nicola Yoon , #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything
The critically acclaimed author of Mosquitoland brings us another batch of unforgettable characters in this New York Times bestselling tragicomedy about first love and devastating loss.
Victor Benucci and Madeline Falco have a story to tell.
It begins with the death of Vic's father.
It ends with the murder of Mad's uncle.
The Hackensack Police Department would very much like to hear it.
But in order to tell their story, Vic and Mad must focus on all the chapters in between.
This is a story about:
1. A coded mission to scatter ashes across New Jersey.
2. The momentous nature of the Palisades in winter.
3. One dormant submarine.
4. Two songs about flowers.
5. Being cool in the traditional sense.
6. Sunsets & ice cream & orchards & graveyards.
7. Simultaneous extreme opposites.
8. A narrow escape from a war-torn country.
9. A story collector.
10. How to listen to someone who does not talk.
11. Falling in love with a painting.
12. Falling in love with a song.
13. Falling in love.
Author Notes
David Arnold lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with his (lovely) wife and (boisterous) son. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Kids of Appetite and Mosquitoland , and his books have been translated into over a dozen languages. Previous jobs include freelance musician/producer, stay-at-home dad, and preschool teacher. David is a fierce believer in the power of kindness and community. And pesto. He believes fiercely in pesto.
You can learn more at davidarnoldbooks.com and follow him on Twitter @roofbeam.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
When grieving teenager Vic flees his home to disperse his father's ashes, he finds solace with a motley crew of semihomeless teens led by Baz, a Congolese refugee who is being accused of a New Jersey murder, and falls in love with Mad, an intrepid bookworm. Stage actor Strole captures Mad's biting wit, and Crouch nails Vic's wistful optimism. (Crouch also gamely tries his best with a sequence that likely worked well in print but is almost unbearably awkward for the listener, in which Vic recites his mantra one hundred times in rapid succession. Points to Crouch for his attempts to vary the delivery.) Where the audiobook falls short is in failing to utilize the talents of Anderson, an experienced audiobook performer who is woefully overlooked here as Baz, mostly serving as a scene-setter at the start of each chapter while Strole and Crouch coarsely attempt to read Baz's dialogue in their respective sections of the story. A Viking hardcover. Ages 14-up. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
In a Hackensack police interrogation room, sixteen-year-old Bruno Victor Benucci III is being interviewed as a witness to a murder. We learn, via Vics first-person narration including flashbacks, about his rare neurological disorder, Moebius syndrome, which causes facial paralysis; about his grief over his deceased father; and about his heart-thinker personality, which makes his inability to conventionally express emotions feel more devastating. In a separate interrogation room is second narrator Madeline (Mad) Falco, a headstrong, almost-eighteen-year-old orphan whose abusive uncle was the murder victim. Mad runs with a crew that includes Congolese-refugee brothers Baz, a fatherly twenty-seven-year-old who turned himself in for the murder, and twenty-year-old Zuz, who is selectively mute; and eleven-year-old Coco, a connoisseur of sass, rap, and faux cussing (What the motherfrakking frak?). Early in Vics tale, the quartet welcomes him in with open arms after he runs away from his mother and her despised new fianc with his fathers urn, looking to scatter Dads ashes per his instructions -- a mission that lends structure to much of his story. Arnolds (Mosquitoland, rev. 3/15) prose is sharp and observant, his pacing restrained, revealing each characters backstory gradually while also setting up a murder investigation that keeps readers guessing until the second it doesnt. Vic constantly refers to life revelations from his father, including the idea of simultaneous extreme opposites -- a concept that, given all the laugh-cries to be had in his emotionally well-wrought novel, Arnold motherfrakking nails. katrina hedeen (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Following his acclaimed debut, Mosquitoland (2015), Arnold offers a heartfelt tale that entwines ferocity with quirk, loss with first love, and beauty with asymmetry. Told almost exclusively through flashbacks, the book begins inside the Hackensack Police Department, where teens Vic and Madeline (Mad) are being individually questioned about a murder. The story, however, begins eight days before, when Vic is taken in by the ragtag Kids of Appetite (KOA), who help Vic in his quest to scatter his beloved father's ashes. Vic who has Moebius syndrome gains a sense of belonging within this diverse and unusual group, but it is Mad who truly captures his attention. Arnold alternates between Vic's and Mad's perspectives as they recall the days leading to their interrogation. Bloodthirsty readers drawn to the murder element, be warned. This novel is for heart-thinkers. Darkness and complexity swirl beneath the surface, as each KOA member copes with personal traumas. At times it feels like Arnold has too many balls in the air, but philosophical teens drawn to themes of belonging will revel in his latest.--Smith, Julia Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
Arnold's funny and touching second novel (after "Mosquitoland") is about many things: making peace with the past; the families we create; abstract painting; and what it means to be a "genuine heart-thinker." Sixteen-year-old Bruno Victor Benucci III's father died two years ago, and he misses him - a lot. His dad taught Vic about Matisse and helped him feel better about having Moebius syndrome, a rare neurological disease that causes facial paralysis. When Vic's mom's dopey boyfriend, Frank, proposes, Vic runs away from home, carrying only his father's ashes and his grief out into a New Jersey winter night. He meets Madeline, almost 18, who shows him a warm place to sleep, along with Coco, an 11-year-old with the vocabulary of a truck driver, and Zuz, who does not speak. Baz, who becomes the leader of this band of misfits, asks Vic only two questions before offering him a place to stay: "Do you need help?" and "Did you hurt anyone?" The story effortlessly switches between Vic and Mad, the past and the present. In the present, Vic and Mad are being questioned by the Hackensack Police Department. We won't know why until the novel's end. Arnold has a talent for stringing words together in just the right, jumbled order. His sentences are arrows. When Vic tells the sergeant interviewing him, "I've always wanted to be strong, Miss Mendes. I just wish there wasn't so much fire," it feels as if gravity has doubled down on your chest. But as Vic realizes, it's much easier to face the flames when you know others are standing with you.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-A varied group of homeless and runaway teens fill this story with heart and character. Vic is grieving the loss of his father, attempting to scatter his ashes as he wished, and running away from his mom's new boyfriend and the changes that relationship is forcing into his life. Mad, Baz, Zuze, and Koko have escaped from their own distressing situations and are helping one another survive. They take Vic under their wing and set out to help him scatter his dad's ashes. When Mad's violent and abusive uncle is murdered, the story unfolds as the police interview these resilient youngsters to find out what happened. Listeners don't need to be familiar with the Hackensack, NJ, setting, but it will be great fun for those who are. This is an engaging, touching story with characters who ring true and with whom young adults will easily identify. VERDICT Recommended for fans of realistic fiction, romance, and family and friendship stories.-Cynthia Ortiz, Hackensack High School Library, NJ © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter 1 The Momentous Multitudes (or, Gird Thy Silly, Futile Selves) Interrogation Room #3 Bruno Victor Benucci III & Sergeant S. Mendes December 19 // 3:12 p.m. Consider this: billions of people in the world, each with billions of I ams . I am a quiet observer, a champion wallflower. I am a lover of art, the Mets, the memory of Dad. I represent approximately one seven-billionth of the population; these are my momentous multitudes, and that's just for starters. "It begins with my friends." "What does?" "My story," I say. Only that's not quite right. I have to go back further than that, before we were friends, back when it was just . . . . . . Okay, got it. "I've fallen in love something like a thousand times." Mendes smiles a little, nudges the digital recorder closer. "I'm sorry--you said . . . you've fallen in love?" "A thousand times," I say, running both hands through my hair. I used to think love was bound by numbers: first kisses, second dances, infinite heartbreaks. I used to think numbers outlasted the love itself, surviving in the dark corners of the demolished heart. I used to think love was heavy and hard. I don't think those things anymore. "I am a Super Racehorse." "You're a what ?" asks Mendes, her eyes at once tough and tired. "Nothing. Where's your uniform?" She wears a tweed skirt with a fitted jacket and flowy blouse. I quietly observe her brown eyes, very intense, and--were it not for the baggy pillows, and the crow's feet framing her features like facial parentheses--quite pretty. I quietly observe the slight creases on her hands and neck, indicative of premature aging. I quietly observe the absence of a wedding ring. I quietly observe her dark hair, shoulder-length with just a lingering shadow of shape and style. Parenthetical, slight, absence, lingering: the momentous multitudes of Mendes, it seems, are found in the hushed footnote. "Technically, I'm off duty," she says. "Plus, I'm a sergeant, so I don't always have to wear a uniform." "So you're the one in charge, right?" "I report to Lieutenant Bell, but this is my case if that's what you're asking." I reach under my chair, pull my Visine out of the front pocket of my backpack, and apply a quick drop in each eye. "Victor, you've been missing eight days. Then this morning you and"--she shuffles through papers until finding the one she's looking for--"Madeline Falco march in here, practically holding hands with Mbemba Bahizire Kabongo, aka Baz, the primary suspect in our murder investigation." "I wasn't holding hands with Baz. And he's no murderer." "You don't think so?" "I know so." Mendes gives me a pity-smile, the kind of smile that frowns. "He just turned himself in, Vic. That, plus his DNA is on the murder weapon. We have more than enough to put Kabongo behind bars for a very long time. What I'm hoping you might shed some light on is how you go from running out the front door of your own home eight days ago, to walking in here this morning. You said you have a story to tell. So tell it." This morning's memory is fresh, Baz's voice ingrained in my brain. Diversion tactics, Vic. They will need time. And we must give it to them. "Every girl who wears eyeliner," I say. . . . . . . Sergeant Mendes squints. "What?" "Every girl who plays an instrument, except--maybe not bassoon." "I'm sorry, I don't unders--" "Every girl who wears old Nikes. Every girl who draws on them. Every girl who shrugs or bakes or reads." Tell them about all the girls you thought you loved, the ones from before. I smile on the inside, the only place I can. "Every girl who rides a bike." I pull out my handkerchief and dab the drool from the corner of my mouth. Dad called it my "leaky mug." I used to hate that. Now I miss it. Sometimes . . . yes, I think I miss the hated things most. Mendes leans back in her chair. "Shortly after you left, your mom reported you missing. I've been in your room, Vic. It's all Whitman and Salinger and Matisse. You're smart. And kind of a nerd, if you don't mind my saying." "What's your point?" "My point is, you're no hard-ass. So why are you acting like one?" Under the metal table, I pick at the fabric of my KOA wristband. "' I am large, I contain multitudes .'" Mendes picks up: "' I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab. Who has done his day's work? Who will soonest be through with his supper? Who wishes to walk with me? '" . . . I try to hide my shock, but I can't be sure my eyes didn't just give me away. "Whitman balanced out the criminal justice classes," says Mendes. "You know what the next line is, don't you?" I don't. So I say nothing at all. "' Will you speak before I am gone? '" she says quietly. "' Will you prove already too late? '" . . . "Due respect, Miss Mendes. You don't know me." She looks back at the file in front of her. "Bruno Victor Benucci III, sixteen, son of Doris Jacoby Benucci and the late Bruno Benucci Jr., deceased two years. Only child. Five-foot-six. Dark hair. Suffers from the rare Moebius syndrome. Obsession with abstract art--" "Do you know what that is?" "Oh, I've had my share of Picasso-obsessed crooks, lemme tell you, it's no picnic." "That's not what I meant." "I know what you meant." Mendes flips the file shut. "And yeah, I did some research. Moebius is a rare neurological disorder affecting the sixth and seventh cranial nerves, present from birth, causing facial paralysis. I understand it's been difficult for you." Mendes's tone suggests a hint of self-satisfaction, as if she's been sitting on this definition, just waiting for me to ask if she knew what was wrong with my face. I've had Moebius syndrome my whole life, and here is what I've learned: the only people arrogant enough to use the words I understand are the ones who can't possibly understand. People who truly get it never say much of anything. "You did some research," I say, barely above a whisper. "A little." "So you know what it feels like to have sand shoved up your eyelids." . . . "What?" "That's what it's like sometimes, not being able to blink," I say. "Dry eye doesn't begin to describe it. More like desert eye." "Vic--" "Did your research offer insight into the night terrors that come from sleeping with your eyes half shut? Or how drinking from a cup feels about as possible as lassoing the moon? Or how the best I can hope for is that kids just leave me alone? Or how certain teachers slow down when talking to me because they assume I'm stupid?" Mendes shifts uncomfortably in her chair. "Don't get me wrong," I say. "I'm not complaining. Lots of people with Moebius have it worse than me. I used to wish I was someone else, but then . . ." But then Dad introduced me to Henri Matisse, an artist who believed each face had its own rhythm. Matisse looked for what he called "particular asymmetry" in his portraits. I liked that. I wondered about the rhythm of my own face, and about my particular asymmetry. I told Dad this once. He said there was beauty in my asymmetry. This made me feel better. Not un-alone, just less alone. Accompanied by art, at least. "But then . . . ?" says Mendes. I almost forgot I'd started a sentence. "Nothing." "Vic, I know you've had it tough." I point both index fingers at my unflinching face. "You mean my . . . 'affliction'?" "I never used the word afflicted ." "Oh right. Suffers from . You're a humanitarian." Underneath my KOA wristband, I feel my tiny paths going nowhere. My fingers have always been a force to be reckoned with, scratching and clawing and pinching. The wristband is an effective reminder, but it's no match for my fingers, with their tiny little fingerbrains, determined to test my pain threshold. I ask, "You ever hear that a person has to go through fire to become who they're meant to be?" Mendes sips her coffee, nods. "Sure." "I've always wanted to be strong, Miss Mendes. I just wish there wasn't so much fire." . . . "Victor." It's a whisper, barely even there. Mendes leans in, her entire presence shifting from defense to offense. "Vic, look at me." I can't. "Look at me," she repeats. I do. "Did Baz Kabongo put you up to this?" She nods slowly. "It's okay. He did, right?" Still, nothing. "Let me tell you what I think happened," she says. "Kabongo gets nervous, sees his face posted all over town, decides he's done hiding. He talks you and your girlfriend into lying to us, saying you were in places you weren't, at times you weren't, with people you weren't. He knows his only chance is an alibi, or an eyewitness saying someone else did it. And who better than two innocent kids? Am I warm?" I say nothing. I am an absolute ace at nonverbals, and every minute that passes is a win, a victory no matter how small. "I'm pretty good at my job," she continues, "and while I don't know where you were on the night of December seventeenth, I know where you weren't. You weren't in that house. You didn't see that pool of blood. You didn't see that man's eyes go out, Victor. You know how I know this is true? If you'd seen all that, there's no way in hell you'd be sitting in that chair right now, dicking around with me. You'd piss your pants, is what you'd do. You'd be fucking terrified." . . . . . . Those fingerbrains are ruthless animals, munching on my multitudes. "Kabongo is counting on you to lie, Vic. But do you know what he forgot? He forgot about Matisse. He forgot about Whitman. He forgot about art. And you know what all good art has in common, right? Honesty. It's the part of you that knows what's what. And that's the part that's gonna tell me the truth." I count to ten in my head, where Baz's voice plays over and over like a scratched record. Let them think what they want. But do not lie. "We'll protect you," says Mendes. "You don't have to be afraid. Just tell me what happened." Diversion tactics, Vic. They will need time. And we must give it to them. . . . . . . I lean in to the digital recorder and clear my throat. "Every girl who drinks tea." Mendes calmly shuts the file. "All right, we're done here." "Every girl who eats raspberry scones." She scoots her chair out from under the table, stands with an air of finality, and speaks loud and clear. "Interview between Bruno Victor Benucci III and Sergeant Sarah Mendes terminated at three twenty-eight p.m." She pushes stop, grabs her coffee and folder off the table, and heads for the door. "Your mom should be here soon to pick you up. In the meantime, feel free to get coffee down the hall." She shakes her head, opens the door, and mumbles, "Fucking raspberry scones." The Hackensack Police Department, Interrogation Room Three, dissolves into the Maywood Orchard, Greenhouse Eleven. I imagine: Baz Kabongo, with his borderline paternal instincts, and sleeve of tattoos; audacious Coco, loyal to the end; Zuz Kabongo, snapping, dancing in place; and I imagine Mad. I remember that moment--my moment of heartbreaking clarity when the clouds parted, and I saw everything as if I'd never seen anything at all. The truth is, I didn't know what love was until I saw it sitting in a greenhouse, unfolding like a map before me, revealing its many uncharted territories. As Sergeant Mendes opens the door to leave, I pull my hand from under the table, raise it up until the wristband is at eye level, admire those three block letters, white against the black fabric: KOA. Walt Whitman was right. We do contain multitudes. Most are hard and heavy, and what a headache. But some multitudes are wondrous. Like this one . . . I am a Kid of Appetite. "I was in that house, Miss Mendes." I focus on the snow-white K and O and A as the blurry image of Mendes freezes in the doorframe. She does not turn around. "I was there," I say. "I saw his eyes go out." Excerpted from Kids of Appetite by David Arnold All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.