Inconvenient
SUMMARY:
In fifteen-year-old Alyssa Bondar’s Russian-Jewish culture, having a few drinks is as traditional as blinchiki and piroshki. So when her mom’s midday cocktails turn into an all-day happy hour, it seems like Alyssa’s the only one who notices—or cares. Her dad is steeped in the nightly news—and denial—and her best friend Lana is too busy trashing their shared Russian heritage so she can be popular.
Alyssa would rather focus on cross-country meets and her first kiss with her running partner, Keith, but someone has to clean up her mom’s mess. But who will be there to catch Alyssa when her mom’s next fall off the wagon threatens to drag her down, too?
TO READ THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS OF INCONVENIENT GO HERE!
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INCONVENIENT is available at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million stores, and your favorite local indi book store. Or, if you don’t want to brave the cold, order it online from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound.org, or Books-A-Million, Walmart.com, or Target.com!
WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:
The story is both hilarious and heartbreaking, [...] the situations are universal. [...] The story, especially the ending, is honest and unsentimental about the difficulties Alyssa faces.”
Booklist Magazine
Gelbwasser realistically portrays the shifting emotions of a teenager navigating complicated situations and conflicting loyalties. This is a complicated drama of people sinking to the lowest common denominator and rising to their best selves to do the right thing.
…Alyssa’s story is a refreshing take on the YA problem novel, one that refuses melodrama and favors instead the powerful significance of the smaller moments of life-a smell, a look, a flash of a memory.
School Library Journal
Written with deep feeling, fully developed characters, a riveting plot, and an authentic depiction of the speech and interests of many contemporary teenagers, Inconvenient concludes realistically—with some hope but no happy ending.
The Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL)
Heartfelt, honest and brave.”
–Sarah Darer Littman, author of CONFESSIONS OF A CLOSET CATHOLIC and LIFE, AFTER
There are no bad people in Margie Gelbwasser’s wise and engrossing debut novel, but there are unsettling intersections—an insidious prejudice against immigrant Russians, a mother surrendering to alcohol, a father unable to intervene, and friends too keen on growing up fast. Alyssa, Gelbwasser’s heart-full narrator, stands at the center of it all—leaning toward adulthood, summoning her courage, determined to survive a world that cannot promise happy endings. INCONVENIENT is riveting, and whole.”
–Beth Kephart, author of UNDERCOVER and THE HEART IS NOT A SIZE
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