by T.E. Carter Genre: YA Contemporary Fiction Release Date: February 27th 2018 Feiwel & Friends (Macmillan) Summary from Goodreads: THE LOVELY BONES meets ALL THE RAGE in a searing, heartbreaking contemporary story of a lost teenager, and the town she leaves behind. Ellie Frias disappeared long before she vanished. Tormented throughout middle school, Ellie begins her freshman year with a new look: she doesnât need to be popular; she just needs to blend in with the wallpaper. But then the unthinkable happens and Ellie is trapped after a brutal assault. She wasn't the first victim and now she watches it happen again and again. She tries to hold on to her happier memories in order to get past the cold days, waiting for someone to find her. The problem is, no one searches for a girl they never noticed in the first place. TE Carterâs stirring and visceral debut not only discusses and dismantles rape culture but also makes you slow down and think about what it is to be human.
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Excerpt:
It was three days into school and my locker was stuck. I figured I had the combination wrong and tried again, but it wouldnât open. The late August day was too warm and sweat was spilling down my new shirt. The school didnât want to spring for air conditioning, so we finished the day with our clothes stuck to us.
âHaving trouble?â He leaned against my locker with all the confidence in the world. Iâd seen him a few times. We werenât in classes together, but heâd smiled at me every day because his math class was across the hall from mine. On the first day, heâd winked at me. On the second day, heâd commented on my shirt. It was self-deprecating â a shirt that mocked my introversion by claiming reading the shirt was enough social interaction for a day. Weâd run into each other in the hall between classes and heâd laughed at it. And said I was too cute to be antisocial.
And now he stood at my locker, smiling at me while I tried to get it open.
âMy lockerâs stuck,â I told him. It was obvious since I was pulling on it, but I told him anyway.
âYouâre new here.â A statement, not a question.
âSort of. I mean, Iâve lived here forever. But here, yeah. I went to St. Elizabethâs.â
He pushed me to the side. âCool. Iâm Caleb.â Punching the bottom right of the metal door, he simultaneously spun the dial into place. It opened on the first try. âSometimes you gotta rough âem up a bit. Theyâre tricky like that.â
âEllie. I mean, you didnât ask, but Iâm Ellie.â
He leaned back against the locker beside mine while I found my books. Three days and I already had a bag full of homework.
âNice to officially meet you, Ellie. Elusive girl from the hallway.â
âIâm not elusive. Thatâs where my class is,â I said.
He laughed as if I was the most hilarious person heâd ever met. âYeah. So, Miss Not Elusive, whatâre you doing now?â
He wasnât exactly attractive. There was something wrong about the way he moved, the way he smiled. Everything about Caleb was off somehow. He was tall, but he walked like heâd woken that morning into his tallness and now he couldnât figure out how to get his body to work the same way.
There was also the way he smiled. It was cute, but it had this way about it. Like heâd learned about smiling from a textbook. The idea of smiling came through, but it seemed like he just followed the directions rather than actually smiled.
âI⦠um, nothing really. I have to read.â
We had a test Monday on summer reading, which Iâd put off all summer to work on reinvention.
âWhatâre you reading?â He took my bag from me and rummaged through it. âGreat Expectations? Theyâre still teaching this crap, huh?â
âArenât you, like, a junior?â
âYeah. Howâd you guess?â
I hadnât had to guess. It had been three days, but everyone knew Caleb and his older brother, Noah; you didnât need friends to know who they were. They walked through the school like the only people whoâd ever mattered. It was probably true.
About the Author
TE Carter was born in New England and has lived in New England for pretty much her entire life. Throughout her career, sheâs done a lot of things, although her passion has always been writing. When sheâs not writing, she can generally be found reading classic literature, obsessing over Game of Thrones (sheâs one hundred percent Team Lannister), playing Xbox, organizing her comic collection, or binge watching baking competitions. She continues to live in New England with her husband and their two cats.
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