Ms. Julie Buxbaum has become one of my most favorite and trusted YA authors and I’ll probably read every book she writes. Her stories are always relevant and her writing is always a blend of charming, witty, heart-wrenching, and adorkable.
Hope and Other Punch Lines is a YA contemporary about the aftermaths of 9/11 to the survivors and to the relatives of the victims of the tragic event and I really am grateful to have come across this novel because it’s a wonderful tribute to those who suffered during that time, personal legacies of loss as the author termed it in her note.
What makes this a unique story is that it is alternately told sixteen years after the tragedy by teenagers, Abbi or Baby Hope (one of the survivors of the tragedy) and Noah (son of one of the victims) as they live a life with the aftereffects of 9/11 always hovering above their heads.
This is such an insightful, funny (there’s even that Tell Me Three Things reference. I totally saw that), thought provoking, and inspiring story that at times made me sniff and choke back lumps in my throat. This is a beautiful reminder why I love YA.
