A Heart in a Body in the World

Each step in Annabelle's 2,700-mile cross-country run brings her closer to facing a trauma from her past in this novel about the heart, all the ways it breaks, and its journey to healing.

"This is one for the ages." -Gayle Forman, author of the #1 bestseller If I Stay
"A book everyone should read right now." -The New York Times Book Review
"A vital and heartbreaking story that brings together the #MeToo movement, the effects of gun violence, and the struggle of building oneself up again after crisis." -Elle
"Equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful." -BookPage

A Printz Honor Book

Each step in Annabelle's 2,700-mile cross-country run brings her closer to facing a trauma from her past in National Book Award finalist Deb Caletti's novel about the heart, all the ways it breaks, and its journey to healing. Because sometimes against our will, against all odds, we go forward.

Then...
Annabelle's life wasn't perfect, but it was full-full of friends, family, love. And a boy...whose attention Annabelle found flattering and unsettling all at once.

Until that attention intensified.

Now...
Annabelle is running. Running fro m the pain and the tragedy from the past year. With only Grandpa Ed and the journal she fills with words she can't speak out loud, Annabelle runs from Seattle to Washington, DC and toward a destination she doesn't understand but is determined to reach. With every beat of her heart, every stride of her feet, Annabelle steps closer to healing-and the strength she discovers within herself to let love and hope back into her life.

Annabelle's journey is the ultimate testament to the human heart, and how it goes on after being broken.

Rezension:

A guy in a parking lot leers at her, and Annabelle Agnelli takes off running. Eleven miles later, she stops, only to realize that running is exactly what she needs to do. Not just an impromptu, panic-stricken bolt, but an outlandishly extreme run that will take her from Seattle to Washington, D.C. It might help with her PTSD, and it might help her come to terms with her body. It will surely give her time to mourn the terrible losses of the previous year, and atone for the role she was never meant to play. This remarkable book traces Annabelle's cross-country adventure while gradually peeling apart the events that led to the trauma she's running from. Annabelle was on the rebound from a disrupted relationship when she befriends a socially awkward boy, now known only as "The Taker." Annabelle couldn't decide if he was weird or cute and tried not to encourage him, but looking back, she is tormented by her every smile and kindness. Through Annabelle, Caletti rips apart the contradicti ons of a society that commands women to be compliant and pleasing and then blames them for male responses to their attractiveness, however violent they might be. This timely, well-written novel is crucial reading in the days of #metoo. - Diane Colson Booklist _STARRED REVIEW_ June 1, 2018