(clicking on the cover will take you to Goodreads!) | Title: Love and Other Unknown Variables Author: Shannon Lee Alexander Published on: October 7th 2014 Publisher: Entangled Teen Genre: Contemporary (YA) Author's website Part of a series?: No. Get a copy: Amazon I Barnes & Noble Charlie Hanson has a clear vision of his future. A senior at Brighton School of Mathematics and Science, he knows he’ll graduate, go to MIT, and inevitably discover solutions to the universe’s greatest unanswered questions. He’s that smart. But Charlie’s future blurs the moment he reaches out to touch the tattoo on a beautiful girl’s neck. The future has never seemed very kind to Charlotte Finch, so she’s counting on the present. She’s not impressed by the strange boy at the donut shop—until she learns he’s a student at Brighton where her sister has just taken a job as the English teacher. With her encouragement, Charlie orchestrates the most effective prank campaign in Brighton history. But, in doing so, he puts his own future in jeopardy. By the time he learns she's ill—and that the pranks were a way to distract Ms. Finch from Charlotte’s illness—Charlotte’s gravitational pull is too great to overcome. Soon he must choose between the familiar formulas he’s always relied on or the girl he’s falling for (at far more than 32 feet per second squared). |
Guest Post: Five Books that Inspired You and Gave You Hope
Love and Other Unknown Variables is a story of first love, heartbreak, and hope. Hope is important to me. It’s essential. It’s the piece of the grand puzzle that makes squinting over all those crazy tiny pieces worthwhile in the end. Hope carries you through to the moment that you set the last piece in, sit back, and think, Well, it all makes sense now!
So I was thrilled when Kat asked if I’d share five books that have inspired me and brought hope into my life.
Anyone who reads Love and Other Unknown Variables will immediately see that Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is at the top of the list of books that inspire me, but for this list, I wanted to pick out some other gems, some going waaayyy back in my life.
3. & 4. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: a Book of Womanist Prose & Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
I read these books in my late teens, early twenties when I was in college. Alice Walker shook up my limited worldview. When I was living in Denver, she came to speak in this beautiful old theater. I sat in a balcony, sandwiched between two very different women, different both from each other and from me, and cried as she read to us. Cried because what she said was beautiful, but also because I wanted to find the courage to speak my mind just like her.
5. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Thanks for hanging out with me today. I’m always looking for hopeful books to add to my TBR list, so I’d love it if you’d share a few of your favorites with me in the comments.
Here’s to hoping for happy holidays for all!
Shannon Lee Alexander is a wife and mother (of two kids and one yellow terrier named Harriet Potter). She is passionate about coffee, books, and cancer research. Math makes her break out in a sweat. Love and Other Unknown Variables is her debut novel. She currently lives in Indianapolis with her family. |