published: 2019
pages: 302
read: 6/22-24/2019
book: 44 in 2019
sometimes looking to the past helps you find your future.
Abbi Hope Goldstein is like every other teenager, with a few smallish exceptions: her famous alter ego, Baby Hope, is the subject of internet memes, she has asthma, and sometimes people spontaneously burst into tears when they recognize her. Abbi has lived almost her entire life in the shadow of the terrorist attacks of September 11. On that fateful day, she was captured in what became an iconic photograph: in the picture, Abbi (aka "Baby Hope") wears a birthday crown and grasps a red balloon; just behind her, the South Tower of the World Trade Center is collapsing.
Now, fifteen years later, Abbi is desperate for anonymity and decides to spend the summer before her seventeenth birthday incognito as a counselor at Knights Day Camp two towns away. She's psyched for eight weeks in the company of four-year-olds, none of whom have ever heard of Baby Hope.
Too bad Noah Stern, whose own world was irrevocably shattered on that terrible day, has a similar summer plan. Noah believes his meeting Baby Hope is fate. Abbi is sure it's a disaster. Soon, though, the two team up to ask difficult questions about the history behind the Baby Hope photo. But is either of them ready to hear the answers?
Abbi Hope Goldstein is like every other teenager, with a few smallish exceptions: her famous alter ego, Baby Hope, is the subject of internet memes, she has asthma, and sometimes people spontaneously burst into tears when they recognize her. Abbi has lived almost her entire life in the shadow of the terrorist attacks of September 11. On that fateful day, she was captured in what became an iconic photograph: in the picture, Abbi (aka "Baby Hope") wears a birthday crown and grasps a red balloon; just behind her, the South Tower of the World Trade Center is collapsing.
Now, fifteen years later, Abbi is desperate for anonymity and decides to spend the summer before her seventeenth birthday incognito as a counselor at Knights Day Camp two towns away. She's psyched for eight weeks in the company of four-year-olds, none of whom have ever heard of Baby Hope.
Too bad Noah Stern, whose own world was irrevocably shattered on that terrible day, has a similar summer plan. Noah believes his meeting Baby Hope is fate. Abbi is sure it's a disaster. Soon, though, the two team up to ask difficult questions about the history behind the Baby Hope photo. But is either of them ready to hear the answers?
MY THOUGHTS
i LOVED this book!!!!!
everything about this book!
OMG!
i don't think I've ever come across this in any other book (remember, i have horrible memory!) where the plots that start end up meeting full circle in such a way that....i don't even know how to finish that.
lets start with the title.
Hope and other Punch Lines.
Hope is Abbi's middle name.
...and other punch lines refers to Noah so well! (at least in my opinion)
Abbi keeps talking about how death always happens twice and she ends up having her own rebirth again which i honestly thought she thought she'd never have so i loved that!
and Noah's mission was to find the first.....and then it turns out that.......(sorry that was very vague but i really loved this part and i don't want to spoil it here) and agh!! L O V E !
i went into this book pretty blind. I've read her other 2 books and i loved them (WTSN & TMTT) so when this one came out i was like okay, ill check it out but like always, i really didn't look into it. so i ordered it at the library thinking id have to wait and luckily i was able to score a copy pretty quick. BUT LIKE ALWAYS.....i waited to read this book til the end of its borrow. ... but with 2 days to spare, i was able to finish it all.
i don't know why i though it was going to take me a bit to get into (but honestly, maybe because my last book kinda dragged and burned me out) but once I did, i couldn't get enough.
"sometimes it feels like those towers are still falling and will never stop." -Abbi I think its everyone's responsibility to continue to bear witness until they do. -Julie Buxbaum.
its been a while since I've read it so i can't really say much more on it but i did love this book and i ended up buying it right away.
i have read reviews that go both ways for this one. some people (like me) are all for it while others have dnf'd it hard core so...I'm not sure....i don't even know how to finish that sentence. i guess its either a hit or miss.
i loved the friendships that were made.
i loved Jack, Noah's best friend. ( i think that's his name. eeek!)
i loved that there were more people than just Abbi & Noah and that the story is more than just Abbi trying to shed Baby Hope.
i loved Abbi's parents!
i loved that i learned more about 9/11 and the aftermath with this book than i have elsewhere (i think that says more about me because i havent looked it up but hey!, im just being honest.)
i loved that everyone gets their sort of closure.
i loved that abbi was always driving around in her Prius and how Noah was co-pilot.
...see i loved all of it!
...see i loved all of it!
im doing a bad job of hyping this up which is 100% my fault cause I've been into reading back to back lately instead of taking my time to blog what i read so yeah....but i will say it again, i love what Buxbaum did with this story and how she connected it all.
and yes, i cant really remember the entirety of this story but i still remember how it made me feel so this is a super win for me.
thanks for reading!
Noah befriends Abbi because, well because she's baby hope. he actually bribed her. he told her he'd tell everyone at the camp they worked at that she was baby hope if she didn't help him.
he did it because he is trying to find his father who happens to be in the (if not one of the) pictures that Abbi is in.
he thinks his dad is alive but just chose not to come home and its not til later on in the book that his mother tells him that for sure he died in the aftermath of the attack. when shit hit the fan, he kept running in to save as many people as he could.
abbi & noah go on a mission to track all the people in the picture to see if they knew everyone.
some people passed, others lived successfully and then there was a lady that had it not been for noah's dad, would have died because she was heavily pregnant.
there is a point where Abbi's health is turning for the worse but she's being stupid and doesn't tell her parents until she lands in the hospital (if i remember correctly, people who were in or around the towers have lived upwards of 18 years but once it hits 18, all sorts of health issues arise and so she thinks this is that calling her for her turn.
her parents are upset with her but they don't really i don't know...give her enough shit for it?
idk
oh! also, her parents are divorced. i cant remember why, i know it has to do with the attack because they were also there, but they end up back together.
i think it was a guilt thing.
i know there's A LOT more but i cant remember....i gotta stop being late on these! gah!
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