The Odds of Lightning
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A bolt of lightning inspires an incredible adventure in this charming, magical realism story that takes four teens on an all-night journey through the streets of New York City.
Extraordinary things happen when we least expect them.
Tiny, Lu, Will and Nathaniel used to be best friends. Then life-defining events the summer before high school tore them apart. Now, three years later, they hardly talk anymore. Nathaniel has become obsessed with winning the prestigious science scholarship that his genius older brother once won. Will has risen from anonymity to popular soccer star. Lu grew into a brash, impetuous actress. And shy, poetic Tiny has slowly been fading away.
But fate weaves their lives together again the night before the SATs, during a wild thunderstorm that threatens to shut down New York City. And lightning strikes.
Before they know what's hit them, the four teens embark on an epic all-night adventure to follow their dreams, fall in and out of love, reconcile the past, and overcome the fears that have been driving them since that one lost summer. And by the time the sun rises, odds are they’ll discover that there’s a fine line between science and magic, and that the mysteries of love and friendship can’t be explained.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Davies (the Beautiful Dark trilogy) offers a heady story of four once-close friends finding their way back to each other during a "stormpocalypse" in New York City, the night before they take their SATs. Nathaniel is a science whiz living in the shadow of his dead older brother; Will, formerly overweight, is now a popular soccer star; Lu, a theater kid, buries her many hurts; and Tiny, Lu's (supposed) best friend, feels insignificant to the point of invisible. During a chance encounter on a rooftop during a party, the four are struck by lightning and survive to find themselves supernaturally transformed in ways connected to their insecurities: Lu feels nothing but numbness, Will suddenly looks like his soccer co-captain, etc. In third-person chapters that flip between her characters' past and present, Davies acutely expresses their innermost feelings, hopes, and vulnerabilities. As these four teens crisscross the city, contemplating who they really are and what makes them worthy of friendship and love, readers will be hard-pressed not to reflect on similar questions themselves. Ages 14 up.
