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Overview
A Seventeen Best Book of the Year
A New York Public Library Top Ten Best Book of the Year
A Kirkus Best Book of the Year For fans of All the Bright Places and Looking for Alaska comes "a daring, inventive story about love and loss and longing, reminding us that every choice can be a new chance. A dazzling, not-to-be-missed debut." --Kathleen Glasgow, author of Girl in Pieces In one impulsive moment the summer before they leave for college, Scarlett and David plunge into a brief and irresistible swirl of romance, particle physics, and questionable decisions. Scarlett and David have known each other all their lives in small-town Graceville, Colorado, where David is just another mountain in the background, until, one day, he is suddenly so much more than part of the scenery. Magnetic, spontaneous, David is a gravitational force. And Scarlett, pragmatic, wry, eye on the future, welcomes the pull he has on her even as she resists it. Moving between the present and the past, this is the story of a seemingly grounded girl who's pulled into a lightning-strike romance with an electric-charged boy, and the enormity of the aftermath. Smart, bold, and emotionally deep, Shana Youngdahl's debut explores grief, guilt, and reconciling who you think you need to be with the person you've been all along. It's an aching, transporting reminder that between the past that shapes us and the unknowable future, we have only the present to forgive ourselves and forge ahead. "A story you won't forget." --Huntley Fitzpatrick, author of My Life Next Door
"Mystery...Heartbreak...Hope...Readers will not be able to put this one down."--SLJ
"Vivid" --Seventeen.com
"You'll speed read through it]" --PopSugar
"John Green-like, intelligent and peppered with witty repartee" --Booklist
"Heartbreaking, exquisitely crafted" --Estelle Laure, author of This Raging Light
"Deeply authentic...Marvelously complex...Readers shouldn't miss it]" --Kirkus, starred review
"A complex, compassionately written love story" --PW
"A definite purchase and must read."--VOYA
"Perfect." --Book Page
Details
- ISBN-13: 9780525553854
- ISBN-10: 0525553851
- Publisher: Dial Books
- Publish Date: August 2019
- Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
- Page Count: 432
- Reading Level: Ages 14-UP
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BookPage® Reviews
As Many Nows as I Can Get
“Maybe it’s impossible not to connect our experiences to one another in a really linear way,” narrates Scarlett, a rising college sophomore and physics star. “But Einstein gave us another approach. Time [is] like a flip-book—each image still there but only moving because we turn the pages to see it.”
As readers turn the pages of Shana Youngdahl’s debut novel, As Many Nows as I Can Get, time flips back and forth. We see a road trip after Scarlett’s first year at Colwyn College. We see the year before, as she prepares to say goodbye to her small Colorado town and to David, the local golden boy harboring dark secrets. Just as she’s settling into her new home with her roommate, Mina, Scarlett learns that she’s pregnant. Should she keep the baby, have an abortion or seek adoptive parents? What will her pregnancy mean for her college experience, her intended career as a scientist and her self-image?
As the narration flips between Scarlett’s senior year of high school, her first year of college and the life-changing summer in between, she realizes that, like physics, life is all about thinking, observing, rethinking, drawing a conclusion—and then asking more questions.
YA literature, some say, is about the moments when one state of being changes to another. In its structure and its story, As Many Nows as I Can Get is a perfect example of this sometimes bumpy, sometimes poignant transition.
