{"product_id":"plan-a-isbn-9780593485569","title":"Plan A","description":"\u003cb\u003eA sixteen-year-old girl’s road trip across the country to get an abortion becomes a transformative journey of vulnerability, strength, and above all, choice. From the acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eA Heart in a Body in the World\u003c\/i\u003e, this is both an achingly tender love story and a bold, badly needed battle cry about bodily autonomy and the experiences that connect us.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIvy can’t entirely believe it when the plus sign appears on the test. She didn’t even know it was possible from . . . what happened. But it is, and now \u003ci\u003eshe\u003c\/i\u003e is, and instead of spending the summer working at the local drugstore and swooning over her boyfriend, Lorenzo, suddenly she’s planning a cross-country road trip to her grandmother’s house on the West Coast, where she can legally obtain an abortion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEscaping her small Texas town and the judgment of her friends and neighbors, Ivy hits the road with Lorenzo, who, determined to make the best of their “abortion road trip love story,” has transformed the journey into a whirlwind tour of the world: all the way from Paris, Texas, to Rome, Oregon . . . and every rest-stop diner and corny roadside attraction along the way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd while Ivy can’t run from the incessant pressure of others’ opinions about her body or from her own expectations and insecurities, she discovers a new world of healing and hope. As the women she encounters share their stories, she chips away at the stigma, silence, and shame surrounding reproductive rights while those collective experiences guide her to her own rightful destination.\u003cb\u003eFour starred reviews • \u003ci\u003eSLJ\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of the Year • \u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of the Year • Bank Street Best Book of the Year\u003cb\u003e • \u003c\/b\u003eYALSA Top Ten Title\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e★ \"Brilliant and multilayered; \u003cb\u003ean absolute must-read\u003c\/b\u003e.\" —\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e★ \"Caletti offers a matter-of-fact exploration of abortion and its use cases, interweaving myriad perspectives on pregnancy and body agency with \u003cb\u003ea deft and nonjudgmental approach\u003c\/b\u003e.\" —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e★ “\u003ci\u003ePlan A\u003c\/i\u003e nails several elements, from the \u003cb\u003etrue-to-life and engaging voice\u003c\/b\u003e to the tight handle on the nuance in the people who hold contrasting opinions and even the seemingly contradictory but simultaneously simple and complex issues of all varieties involved in abortion rights….Characters throughout are \u003cb\u003edynamically painted with detail\u003c\/b\u003e, as well as Ivy’s sharp observations.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e★ \"An accessible, \u003cb\u003epowerful\u003c\/b\u003e portrayal of the importance of choice. A must-read.\" —\u003ci\u003eSchool Library Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003cb\u003eCaletti approaches a provocative subject with humanity, nuance, and compassion\u003c\/b\u003e; here, Ivy’s story is deeply personal but also contextualized within women’s stories throughout history.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Horn Book Review\u003c\/i\u003eDeb Caletti is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of over twenty books for adults and young adults, including \u003ci\u003eHoney, Baby, Sweetheart,\u003c\/i\u003e a finalist for the National Book Award; \u003ci\u003eA Heart in a Body in the World,\u003c\/i\u003e a Michael L. Printz Honor Book; \u003ci\u003eGirl, Unframed;\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eOne Great Lie.\u003c\/i\u003e Her books have also won the Josette Frank Award for Fiction, the Washington State Book Award, and numerous other state awards and honors, and she was a finalist for the PEN USA Award. She lives with her family in Seattle.1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When I’m not at school, you can find me at  Euwing’s Drugs, and so that’s where I am that day, in the staff break room, surrounded by a shipment of pain relievers. It’s not the most pleasant place to be, I admit. There’s a permanent burnt smell in there after my manager, Maureen, once left the Mr. Coffee on all night, and it has twitching fluorescent lights that make you feel like you’re in one of those futuristic movies where someone implanted a micro­chip in your brain. Still, it’s what we’ve got, so I set my water bottle on a box that reads this end up and try for the hundredth time to start \u003ci\u003eTess of the D’Urbervilles\u003c\/i\u003e for Advanced English III. I’m so far behind that it’s becoming one of those things that grow bigger and bigger the longer you don’t do them. I’ve never been this far behind in any of my schoolwork, and we’ve got a final coming up soon, but I just can’t get through the beginning. You wouldn’t believe how many pages there are before that thing actually starts. There’s a foreword, and then an explanatory note to the first edition, and then a preface to the fifth and later editions. I’m not even kidding. You practically expect an introduction to the 109th  edition.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Blah, blah, blah, preface. If you ask me, they ought to be outlawed, the pages before the pages. And if they’re in italics, forget it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eYou have a lot of opinions, Ivy,\u003c\/i\u003e my mom always says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Which is, of course, an opinion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She has a lot of them, too—­opinions about music and men, guitars and rom-­coms—­and so does Grandma Lottie, about everything from shit cars to fast food. It’s a thing in my family, especially among the DeVries women, to see yourself as strong-­minded and willful, fierce. Also, that old-­fashioned  word “plucky.” But I can tell you one thing—­right then, I don’t feel very fierce, and you’d need way more boxes of pain relief to fix the hurt swirling around in my head. \u003ci\u003eSwirl\u003c\/i\u003e—­my stomach, too. Forget about eating.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To get to the actual beginning of the book, I just skip all of it, all those pages that seem so meaningless. Fine, whatever, get to page seventeen, where the thing actually starts. You know what’s funny? The first line. \u003ci\u003eOn an evening in the latter part of May,\u003c\/i\u003e it reads, and right at that moment, it’s actually an evening in the latter part of May. Something about this makes me think of our dog, Wilson, chasing his tail. Going around and around only to end up at the same place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eStop being a preface, Ivy,\u003c\/i\u003e I tell myself. \u003ci\u003eGet on with it.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I sigh long and loud, even if no one hears it, and take off my blue vest with my name tag pinned on. In order to reveal my future, I open the book to a random spot to see what it says. Pages 142 and 143. \u003ci\u003eMy life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances!\u003c\/i\u003e Wow, thanks. Come on, book, you can do better! I close my eyes, move my finger down the page, and stop. \u003ci\u003eWhat’s the use of learning that I am one of a long row only?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Oh my God. Or oh somebody’s God. I \u003ci\u003ewish\u003c\/i\u003e he were mine, but the way people around here talk about God, he too often seems like the worst bad boyfriend—­moody, mean, and impossible to please.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ms. La Costa did say that \u003ci\u003eTess of the D’Urbervilles\u003c\/i\u003e was the most depressing book ever as she handed out the copies in class, her legs \u003ci\u003eshush-­shush\u003c\/i\u003eing from her nylons. How can it \u003ci\u003enot\u003c\/i\u003e be? It’s about a woman in the 1870s who gets raped and has a baby, and then her whole town basically ostracizes her. When Olivia Kneeley said, \u003ci\u003eWhy do we have to read it, then?\u003c\/i\u003e Ms. La Costa said, \u003ci\u003eWe still have to\u003c\/i\u003e look.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I wrap up the second triangle-­half of my peanut butter sandwich, tucking it into a plastic-wrap swaddle. It’s one of those awful times when everything seems to be telling you something, even a peanut butter sandwich. Mini fridge, checkered linoleum, the curve of an orange peel in the trash, goodbye. I gather my things. Bending down, I tie my shoes even though they’re already tied, like you do for a marathon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e My opinions—­they don’t have the power to wreck lives, though. They don’t have the ability to make you so scared and so ashamed that you’ll do what people want you to do, even if it destroys you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This all could be so easy, since I’m right there at Euwing’s Drugs, where I’ve worked three days a week after school for two years now, and all day in the summer. Those very boxes are right in reach. But it’s not easy. It’s not Tess hard, but it’s hard enough that I haven’t slept for days. A scary dread keeps popping out at unexpected times, same as Diesel, our neighbor Mr. Sykes’s dog, who snarls and flings his body against the chain-­link fence whenever anyone or anything passes by.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Be right back,” I say to Maureen, who pinches her lips together and adjusts her own blue vest with the name tag that reads maureen and, under that, in print so small you practically have to have your face in our boobs to read it, how can i help you? She hates me. She absolutely hates me. I hate her daily tuna, how the smell of it merges with the old burnt coffee, but I try really hard to see the good in her. Whenever I relay all the thrilling drama at Euwing’s Drugs for my best friends, Peyton and Faith, Peyton says for the millionth time, \u003ci\u003eShe’s just jealous—­you know that.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I know that. I’m the youngest assistant manager Euwing’s has ever had, according to Mr. Euwing. Bob. \u003ci\u003eCall me Bob. No more of this Mr. Euwing business. You’re making me feel old!\u003c\/i\u003e Promoted to management in only two years. While I’m still in \u003ci\u003ehigh school.\u003c\/i\u003e It took Maureen, who’s, like, forty or fifty, something like fifteen years to be assistant manager, and two more to make manager after Flo died. I get it. I’d be jealous, too. I keep trying to be nice to her to make up for it, offering her a mint, giving her compliments about her hair or her latest manicure design, but there’s no going back to the days when she’d pat my shoulder and say, \u003ci\u003eHow you doing, Ives?\u003c\/i\u003e Mr. Euwing tapped the magic wand on my head because I’m his favorite, and who likes a favorite? I’d hate me if I were Maureen, trudging in to work all those years and then hearing Mr. Euwing say stuff to me like, \u003ci\u003eI want to support your goals!\u003c\/i\u003e I don’t even know what my goals actually are. Go to college. Make money. Definitely see some places beyond Paris, Texas. Definitely see the real Paris someday, the real lots of cities in lots of countries, even. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I try to walk casually across the store, past the aisles labeled first aid and beauty and seasonal. I don’t look at that wire cage by the door with those two lovebirds inside, Buddy and Missy, with their orange heads and curved red beaks and those black bead eyes on a circle of white that look like the plastic eyes you can find in a bin at Shelley’s Craft and Quilt. Those eyes are so creepy and lifeless that you better make a joke about them, fast. \u003ci\u003eEuwing Opaline Lovebird,\u003c\/i\u003e Mr. Euwing will tell you. \u003ci\u003eThat’s right! They have my last name! How can I\u003c\/i\u003e not \u003ci\u003ewant to own them?\u003c\/i\u003e He’ll tell you much more than that, too—­how they’re a mutation of two mutations, Euwing and Opaline, how you can pair two birds to actually design the bird you want. \u003ci\u003eYou can change its color. You can stop it from flying, even.\u003c\/i\u003e “Birds don’t belong in cages” is another opinion I have. What a life, to be forced inside, the door shut on all the possibilities that are right out there for you to see but not have. I hate the way those birds lift their feathers and peck at their small fat bodies and screech and scream. They make me so uneasy, I always try to avoid them, unless Mr. Euwing is watching.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Outside, I stroll all casual until I’m sure I’m out of sight of Maureen and Evan, who’s at the register. Then I take off. I run so hard, my backpack bangs against my side until I’m practically falling at the automatic doorstep of Euwing’s archenemy, CVS. Giant corporation, forcing out the little guy. “Everything always seems to be about power” is another opinion I have. I step on the black mat, and the door whooshes open, which seems so upscale compared to our regular old door that you have to actually push. Everyone pulls, even though there’s a sign right on it. Customers who have been coming for years do it, because, let me tell you, the force of habit is strong. If you watch Wilson go outside to pee, you even wonder if habit is inborn. Sniff the same two bushes, lift leg on tree, repeat for years, even when I try really hard to get him to view the yard in a new way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Inside CVS, air-­conditioning hits, and a wall of cool suddenly surrounds me. Goose bumps prickle up my arms as I face the display of Pump-­Up Max protein powder on sale that greets you as you walk in. The store is bright and clean and new, and so big that it’s almost hard to see the anything in the everything. I glance around like a spy. My heart beats a guilty gallop, as if I’m about to rob the place. I didn’t imagine how this would actually feel. Well, it feels bad. Really bad. Like a shame python is wrapping itself around me and squeezing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e No cart, just a basket, the kind with the metal handles covered in a thin roll of red plastic. I get a hairbrush, on sale, protected in its transparent dome. A bottle of Suave shampoo, strawberry. A box of Red Vines for a dollar twenty-­five. A box of Junior Mints for ninety-­nine cents. A cheap mascara. When I get to \u003ci\u003ethat\u003c\/i\u003e aisle, my face flushes. It’s mid-May and warm, eighty-­two. Paris doesn’t get hot like the Texas desert where my dad lives. It once got to be one twenty in Odessa. But I’m perspiring even in that air-­conditioning. Still, I wish I had a sweatshirt or something to cover my bare arms in my sundress. My skin feels all exposed, because when you’re in that aisle, the one way in the back, it’s the aisle of disgrace, where you stand there and publicly admit that you had sex or are about to have sex or that you get your period or can’t control your bladder.","brand":"Ember","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302913724645,"sku":"NP9780593485569","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593485569.jpg?v=1767734830","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/plan-a-isbn-9780593485569","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}