The Downside Of Being Charlie

Charlie is handed a crappy senior year. Despite losing thirty pounds over the summer, he still gets called “Chunks” Grisner. What’s worse, he has to share a locker with the biggest Lord of the Rings freak his school has ever seen. He also can’t figure out whether Charlotte VanderKleaton, the beautiful strawberry lip-glossed new girl, likes him the way he likes her. Oh, and then there’s his mom. She’s disappeared—again—and his dad won’t talk about it. Somewhere between the madness, Charlie can at least find comfort in his one and only talent that just might get him out of this life-sucking place. But will he be able to hold his head above water in the meantime?

A gay Lutheran teen, Charles James Stewart II, chronicles a very memorable senior year at South High in Crystal Lake, Ill.

From the mega-bestselling creator of Heartstopper, a must-have novella in which Heartstopper's lead characters, Nick and Charlie, face one of their biggest challenges yet. Absence makes the heart grow fonder... right? Everyone knows that Nick and Charlie love their nearly inseparable life together. But soon Nick will be leaving for university, and Charlie, a year younger, will be left behind. Everyone's asking if they're staying together, which is a stupid question... or at least that's what Nick and Charlie assume at first. As the time to say goodbye gets inevitably closer, both Nick and Charlie start to question whether their love is strong enough to survive being apart. Charlie is sure he's holding Nick back... and Nick can't tell what Charlie's thinking. Things spiral from there. Everyone knows that first loves rarely last forever. What will it take for Nick and Charlie to defy the odds?

Children’s and young adult literature has become an essential medium for identity formation in contemporary Latino/a culture in the United States. This book is an original collection of more than thirty interviews led by Frederick Luis Aldama with Latino/a authors working in the genre. The conversations revolve around the conveyance of young Latino/a experience, and what that means for the authors as they overcome societal obstacles and aesthetic complexity. The authors also speak extensively about their experiences within the publishing industry and with their audiences. As such, Aldama’s collection presents an open forum to contemporary Latino/a writers working in a vital literary category and sheds new light on the myriad formats, distinctive nature, and cultural impact it offers.

It is the summer after Frenchie Garcia's senior year, and she can't come to grips with the death of Andy Cooper. Her friends don't know that she had a secret crush on her classmate, and they especially don't know that she was with Andy right before he committed suicide. The only person who does know is Frenchie's imaginary pal Em (a.k.a. Emily Dickinson), who she hangs out with at the cemetery down the street. When Frenchie's guilt and confusion come to a head, she decides there is only one way to truly figure out why Andy chose to be with her during his last hours. While exploring the emotional depth of loss and transition to adulthood, Sanchez's sharp humor and clever observations bring forth a richly developed voice.

The bold and boundlessly original debut novel from the Oscar®-winning screenwriter of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Synecdoche, New York. LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE • “A dyspeptic satire that owes much to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon . . . propelled by Kaufman’s deep imagination, considerable writing ability and bull’s-eye wit."—The Washington Post “An astonishing creation . . . riotously funny . . . an exceptionally good [book].”—The New York Times Book Review • “Kaufman is a master of language . . . a sight to behold.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND MEN’S HEALTH B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, neurotic and underappreciated film critic (failed academic, filmmaker, paramour, shoe salesman who sleeps in a sock drawer), stumbles upon a hitherto unseen film made by an enigmatic outsider—a film he’s convinced will change his career trajectory and rock the world of cinema to its core. His hands on what is possibly the greatest movie ever made—a three-month-long stop-motion masterpiece that took its reclusive auteur ninety years to complete—B. knows that it is his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: The film is destroyed, leaving him the sole witness to its inadvertently ephemeral genius. All that’s left of this work of art is a single frame from which B. must somehow attempt to recall the film that just might be the last great hope of civilization. Thus begins a mind-boggling journey through the hilarious nightmarescape of a psyche as lushly Kafkaesque as it is atrophied by the relentless spew of Twitter. Desperate to impose order on an increasingly nonsensical existence, trapped in a self-imposed prison of aspirational victimhood and degeneratively inclusive language, B. scrambles to re-create the lost masterwork while attempting to keep pace with an ever-fracturing culture of “likes” and arbitrary denunciations that are simultaneously his bête noire and his raison d’être. A searing indictment of the modern world, Antkind is a richly layered meditation on art, time, memory, identity, comedy, and the very nature of existence itself—the grain of truth at the heart of every joke.

A Waterstones Paperback of the Year! What happens when you feel stressed? Maybe you start sweating, or your heart beats faster. When Charlie McGuffin gets stressed, something a little bit different happens: he turns into an animal! Unfortunately, things are getting quite stressful for Charlie: - His dad's business is in real trouble - He might have to move in with his Aunt Brenda and her seventeen cats (and wooden leg) - And it's getting harder and harder to control his powers Luckily, Charlie's best friends Flora, Wogan and Mohsen are on hand to help. If they can break into the fortress-like offices of Van Der Gruyne Industries and recover the McGuffins' stolen gold, maybe Charlie won't have to move away after all. Can Charlie's friends help him master his powers once and for all, or will he end up stuck as a pigeon forever? Praise for Charlie Changes into a Chicken: 'This is a really funny book!' Alice, age 8 'My body couldn't help but shake with laughter' Maren, age 10 'Belly-busting hilarity' The Guardian 'Laugh-out-loud funny' The Mail on Sunday 'The modern masterpiece . . . this savvy, comic tale ticks every box' The Daily Telegraph 'Cleverly daft storytelling at its very, very best' Maz Evans, author of Who Let The Gods Out? 'The best kind of silly' The Observer 'Full of heart and humour, wit and wisdom' Sophie Anderson, author of The House with Chicken Legs 'Wonderfully heart-warming and absolutely hilarious' Catherine Doyle, author of The Storm Keeper's Island Charlie Changes into a Chicken has been: Shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize! Longlisted for the Brandford Boase Award! Longlisted for the Blue Peter Award! The Guardian and The Telegraph's Book of the Year!

Charlie Big Potatoes is a bittersweet delight, proving that big boys do cry. And a lot more besides. Charlie Marshall is not a man who should be getting married. But the ceremony is in five days' time and it's too late to back out. His future mother-in-law has paid for 150 portions of salmon and his mates are about to drag him off to New York for a stag weekend he'll never forget - if he manages to live that long... You see, the consequences of his drunken life are about to fall on him like a ton of uneaten wedding cake. The booze and the drugs, the fights and the fires, the greedy boss, the girls and his mother are killing him faster than his knack for colliding with hard surfaces at high speed. So, trapped somewhere between married life and a night in casualty, Charlie attempts to face his demons and learns a few lessons about fidelity, fickle friends and gambling grandmothers along the way. But it remains to be seen whether he can gather his scattered wits, fake a quick recovery and get through rehab before his cheque bounces and his liver dissolves...