Description

“Funny, heart-wrenching, and wickedly smart, Away We Go is everything I love best about Emil Ostrovski's writing. This is a great novel!”—Andrew Smith, Printz Honor–winning author of Grasshopper Jungle

With an innovative format that includes interstitial documents, such as flyers, postcards, and handwritten notes, Away We Go is an often funny, honest look at the struggles of first love and tragic heartbreak that will resonate with fans of the critically acclaimed Grasshopper Jungle, by Andrew Smith, and Noggin, by John Corey Whaley.

Westing is not your typical school. For starters, you have to have one very important quality in order to be admitted—you have to be dying. Every student at Westing has been diagnosed with PPV, or the Peter Pan Virus, and no one is expected to live to graduation. What do you do when you go to a high school where no one has a future or any clue how to find meaning in their remaining days?

From the author of the acclaimed The Paradox of Vertical Flight, an Indie Next Pick.

About the author(s)

Emil Ostrovski emigrated from Russia when he was two years old. He graduated from Vassar College in 2012 with a degree in philosophy and currently attends the MFA program in creative writing at Columbia University. The Paradox of Vertical Flight is his first novel.

Reviews

“A lyrical, raucous narrative interspersed with flyers, posters, and letters…the oscillation between [Noah’s] heartfelt interior thoughts and sometimes careless actions and words is both moving and infuriating-in other words, vividly human. An intelligent, thought-provoking exploration of living in spite of futility.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Intellectual boys’ boarding school story meets near-future dystopia in this end-times tale. …Noah and his friends form loving, believably complex relationships…witty.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Noah is a nihilistic existentialist to the world, but inside he’s searching for something to reassure him that he is truly alive. His search for meaning is universal and will resonate with readers beginning to question their future.” — School Library Journal

“The complex organization of this novel requires careful attention…Even so, brainy readers who want to see just how grim Holden Caulfield would get if he knew he was dying soon will find this to be a pretty accurate approximation.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books