Nickel

A BOOKLIST Best Young Adult Book of 2016 and a Top 10 Romance for Youth BEING A TEENAGER is hard enough without your mother in rehab and your slightly inept stepfather doing his best not to screw things up. But at least, Coy has Monroe. Coy is a quirky teenage boy and his best friend Monroe is a girl who is just as odd and funny and obsessed with 80's culture as he is. So when Monroe comes down with a mysterious illness, his inner turmoil only grows. As Monroe gets sicker and Coy gets a girlfriend from another social crowd, the balance tips and Coy has to figure out how not to give up on his friend, his family, or himself. Nickel is a hilarious, heartbreaking and honest portrayal of the complicated world of being a teenager today. "No one has ever written about the pains of being a teenager--physically and psychologically, inside and out--quite like Robert Wilder in his startling debut novel. He has created indelible characters in Monroe and Coy--funny and sad and strong and broken--and NICKEL is about as real as it gets. --AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS, New York Times best-selling author of Running With Scissors