Hope and Other Punch Lines
Author:
Series: Blog Post Topics, Historical Fiction and 9/11
Genre: Historical Fiction - YA
ASIN: B07J4CZ8HY
ISBN: 9781524766771

(YA reading level - death, mild romance, and some mentions of alcohol abuse)

There are some books that just capture your interest from the first page. Hope and Other Punch Lines is one of those books. Buxbaum tells the story of sixteen-year-old Abbi, whose whole life has been overshadowed by 9/11. Although she was only a toddler when the towers fell, her escape from the World Trade Center was made famous by a photograph taken on that day. In the image, baby Abbi stood at the center of several survivors, clutching a red birthday balloon.

Nicknamed "baby Hope," the symbolic photograph has overshadowed Abbi from that day forward. Now a teenager, she befriends a boy named Noah, who holds his own secret connect to that same image.

The writing in this book just sparkles with authenticity and humor. I found myself reading her sentences out loud as they were both laugh-out-loud funny and so creatively descriptive. This is one of those YA books that is both for teenagers and adults.

About the Book

From the publisher, “Sometimes looking to the past helps you find your future.

Abbi Hope Goldstein is like every other teenager, with a few smallish exceptions: her famous alter ego, Baby Hope, is the subject of internet memes, she has asthma, and sometimes people spontaneously burst into tears when they recognize her. Abbi has lived almost her entire life in the shadow of the terrorist attacks of September 11. On that fateful day, she was captured in what became an iconic photograph: in the picture, Abbi (aka “Baby Hope”) wears a birthday crown and grasps a red balloon; just behind her, the South Tower of the World Trade Center is collapsing.

Now, fifteen years later, Abbi is desperate for anonymity and decides to spend the summer before her seventeenth birthday incognito as a counselor at Knights Day Camp two towns away. She’s psyched for eight weeks in the company of four-year-olds, none of whom have ever heard of Baby Hope.

Too bad Noah Stern, whose own world was irrevocably shattered on that terrible day, has a similar summer plan. Noah believes his meeting Baby Hope is fate. Abbi is sure it’s a disaster. Soon, though, the two team up to ask difficult questions about the history behind the Baby Hope photo. But is either of them ready to hear the answers?”

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