An off-the-wall love story told in two voices. Straight-laced Sara dreams of two things: getting into her first-choice university and finding true love. Rock-loving slacker Tobey also dreams of two things: winning Battle of the Bands - and winning Sara. He is determined to make her fall in love with him. Tobey's quirky wit and big blue eyes are hard for Sara to ignore. But can a scruffy rock-star wannabe ever win the heart of a girl who's both beautiful and brainy? Sara and Tobey's intense connection will have you rooting for them from the very minute they meet!
Tales of love, loss, and betrayal are at the heart of When It Happens to You, the debut story collection from actress and author Molly Ringwald. A Hollywood icon, Ringwald defined the teenage experience in the eighties in such classic films as Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles. Now the star of ABC Family’s hit series, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and author of the bestselling memoir Getting the Pretty Back, Ringwald brings that same compelling candor she displayed in her film roles to the unforgettable characters she has created in this series of linked stories about the particular challenges, joys, and disappointments of adult relationships. Here are stories that grapple with infertility and infidelity, fame and familial discord, in a magnificent collection that will resonate broadly with readers—from fans of Melissa Banks to Meg Wolitzer to Lorrie Moore.
Life’s inevitable difficulties and disappointments can discourage us from praying, but our response should be to pray anyway and keep praying. Whatever we seek, God invites us to come to Him with confidence, believing that He is able to answer—and He will answer. We can pray for: Forgiveness like David Wisdom like Solomon Healing like Hezekiah A child like Hannah Deliverance like Jonah Mercy like the 10 lepers Salvation like the thief on the cross But are you convinced that prayer works, even when you don’t get the answers you want? In It Happens After Prayer, Pastor HB Charles, Jr. motivates and encourages us to respond to the challenges of life with prayer, to pray without ceasing, and to pray with great expectations. Are you ready for a new level of earnest, passionate, God-size prayers? Don’t let another day go by without praying and seeking the face of God, because it happens after prayer.
From master storyteller Amy Hatvany—whose writing has been hailed as “gripping and emotionally honest” (Stephanie Evanovich, New York Times betselling author)—comes a provocative and compelling novel about two friends whose lives are changed by a drunken kiss. I want to rewind the clock, take back the night when the world shattered. I want to erase everything that went wrong. Amber Bryant and Tyler Hicks have been best friends since they were teenagers—trusting and depending on each other through some of the darkest periods of their young lives. And while Amber has always felt that their relationship is strictly platonic, Tyler has long harbored the secret desire that they might one day become more than friends. Returning home for the summer after her college graduation, Amber begins spending more time with Tyler than she has in years. Despite the fact that Amber is engaged to her college sweetheart, a flirtation begins to grow between them. One night, fueled by alcohol and concerns about whether she’s getting married too young, Amber kisses Tyler. What happens next will change them forever. In alternating points of view, It Happens All the Time examines the complexity of sexual dynamics between men and women and offers an incisive exploration of gender roles, expectations, and the ever-timely issue of consent.
Intergenerational story of three Black women and their struggle to stake their claim to the American dream. How It Happensfollows the story of author Jean Alicia Elster’s maternal grandmother, Dorothy May Jackson. Born in Tennessee in 1890, Dorothy May was the middle daughter of Addie Jackson, a married African-American housekeeper at one of the white boardinghouses in town, and Tom Mitchell, a commanding white attorney from a prominent family. Through three successive generations of African-American women, Elster intertwines the fictionalized adaptations of the defining periods and challenges—race relations, miscegenation, sexual assault, and class divisions—in her family’s history. A continuation of the plots begun in Elster’s two novels Who’s Jim Hines? and The Colored Car, How It Happens continues the story for an older audience and begins with Addie’s life before the turn of the century in the South as a married Black woman with three biracial daughters navigating the relationship between her husband and Tom Mitchell. Later the story shifts to Addie’s daughter Dorothy May’s experiences both as a child and later, as a teacher who, choosing between her career and marriage to a man she barely knows, moves to Detroit. The story moves along with Dorothy May’s daughter Jean, who, with the support of her mother and the memory of her grandmother, confronts and comes to terms with her role in society and the options available to her as a college-educated Black woman in the post–World War II industrial North. While there is struggle and hardship for each of these women, they each build off one other and continue to demand space in the world in which they live. Written for young adult readers, How It Happens carries the heart through the obstacles that still face women of color today and persists in holding open the door of communication between generations.
Reader, don’t waste your time with this book. You might as well stick this book back on the shelf. Or toss it under your bed. You don’t need to read it because nothing happens. Or, wait, is that something? It’s a trumpet without a trumpeter. And there’s a tiny car without a driver. And a baton without a twirler. Maybe if you keep turning the pages, you’ll find out who is missing these items. Maybe they are all together, about to do something surprising. Maybe something does happen after all — something amazing! Kids will be hooked as they embark on a quest to find this (seemingly) missing story!
My heart hummed a happy tune as I got into the car with Ankush and directed him towards Suchi's home. Of course, I had no idea about the strange games that the gods were playing that day. Sometimes things happen for a reason, though they are not obvious at that moment, and there is nothing you can do to control them. When Vipasha--Vee to friends--eighteen and single, makes the decision to have her baby, she does more than give up her promising modelling career. She ends up cutting ties with her family, and with Ankush, the man she thought she was in love with. Fast-forward sixteen years and she now has two unusual careers: she runs a dog-boarding facility and is a gym instructor. Her son, Aryan, thinks she is the coolest mom in the world and hopes she will one day find her Prince Charming--exactly what her best friend Suchi has in mind for her. But Vee secretly has a thing for Saurabh, the quirky vet. Then, out of the blue, Ankush comes back into their lives. But can a decision that was taken at eighteen--more in the throes of lust than love--be the basis of a life-long relationship? Is there a future for Ankush and Vee? Vee, Aryan and Ankush are in for the ride of their lives. No seat belts, full speed and a very bumpy road ahead. It Happens for a Reason is an enthralling story-about love, strong friendships and unusual choices made along paths never travelled before.
From a VICE magazine columnist, “a deeply entertaining—if occasionally horrifying” (Joshua Piven, coauthor of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook) look at how humanity is likely to weather such happenings as nuclear war, a global internet collapse, antibiotics shortages, and even immortality. If you live on planet Earth you’re probably scared of the future. How could you not be? Some of the world’s most stable democracies are looking pretty shaky. Technology is invading personal relationships and taking over jobs. Relations among the three superpowers—the US, China, and Russia—are growing more complicated and dangerous. A person watching the news has to wonder: is it safe to go out there or not? Taking inspiration from his virally popular VICE column “How Scared Should I Be?,” Mike Pearl games out many of the “could it really happen?” scenarios we’ve all speculated about, assigning a probability rating, and taking us through how it would unfold. He explores what would likely occur in dozens of possible scenarios—among them the final failure of antibiotics, the loss of the world’s marine life, a complete ban on guns in the US, and even contact with extraterrestrial life—and reports back from the future, providing a clear picture of how the world would look, feel, and even smell in each of these instances. For fans of such bestsellers as What If? and The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook, The Day It Finally Happens is about taking future events that we don’t really understand and getting to know them in close detail. Pearl’s “well-researched speculations induce daydreams and nightmares and mark [him] as one of his generation’s most interesting writers” (Alec Ross, New York Times bestselling author).
The reviews called it “A Play to Die For” after a woman was found dead in the front row. It didn’t seem so funny the next night when another body was found—this time the playwright himself, his throat slashed. Detective Kathy Mallory of the NYPD Special Crimes Unit takes over, but isn’t getting a straight answer from anyone. Not the lead actor, a movie star fallen on hard luck; not the lead actress, a nervous sort with a dependence on pharmaceuticals; not even the wardrobe mistress, working under an alias; and certainly not the twin actors so unnervingly convincing playing psychos. Now, backstage, someone has left Mallory a message on the blackboard: Tonight’s the night. Nothing personal. It appears that she is being written into the play itself, a play about a long-ago massacre that may not be fictional after all. If Mallory can find out who’s responsible, heads will roll. Unfortunately, one of them might be her own.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A meditation on sense-making when there’s no sense to be made, on letting go when we can’t hold on, and on being unafraid even when we’re terrified.”—Lucy Kalanithi “Belongs on the shelf alongside other terrific books about this difficult subject, like Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air and Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal.”—Bill Gates NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward “blessing.” She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son. Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. The prospect of her own mortality forces Kate to realize that she has been tacitly subscribing to the prosperity gospel, living with the conviction that she can control the shape of her life with “a surge of determination.” Even as this type of Christianity celebrates the American can-do spirit, it implies that if you “can’t do” and succumb to illness or misfortune, you are a failure. Kate is very sick, and no amount of positive thinking will shrink her tumors. What does it mean to die, she wonders, in a society that insists everything happens for a reason? Kate is stripped of this certainty only to discover that without it, life is hard but beautiful in a way it never has been before. Frank and funny, dark and wise, Kate Bowler pulls the reader deeply into her life in an account she populates affectionately with a colorful, often hilarious retinue of friends, mega-church preachers, relatives, and doctors. Everything Happens for a Reason tells her story, offering up her irreverent, hard-won observations on dying and the ways it has taught her to live. Praise for Everything Happens for a Reason “I fell hard and fast for Kate Bowler. Her writing is naked, elegant, and gripping—she’s like a Christian Joan Didion. I left Kate’s story feeling more present, more grateful, and a hell of a lot less alone. And what else is art for?”—Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and president of Together Rising
