{"product_id":"a-semidefinitive-list-of-worst-nightmares-isbn-9780399546600","title":"A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom the author of \u003ci\u003eOur Chemical Hearts\u003c\/i\u003e comes the hilarious, reality-bending tale of two outsiders facing their greatest fears about life and love—one debilitating phobia at a time.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCover may vary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ever since Esther Solar’s grandfather was cursed by Death, everyone in her family has been doomed to suffer one great fear in their lifetime. Esther’s father is agoraphobic and hasn’t left the basement in six years, her twin brother can’t be in the dark without a light on, and her mother is terrified of bad luck.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The Solars are consumed by their fears and, according to the legend of the curse, destined to die from them.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Esther doesn’t know what her great fear is yet (nor does she want to), a feat achieved by avoiding pretty much everything. Elevators, small spaces and crowds are all off-limits. So are haircuts, spiders, dolls, mirrors and three dozen other phobias she keeps a record of in her semi-definitive list of worst nightmares.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Then Esther is pickpocketed by Jonah Smallwood, an old elementary school classmate. Along with her phone, money and a fruit roll-up she’d been saving, Jonah also steals her list of fears. Despite the theft, Esther and Jonah become friends, and he sets a challenge for them: in an effort to break the curse that has crippled her family, they will meet every Sunday of senior year to work their way through the list, facing one terrifying fear at a time, including one that Esther hadn’t counted on: love.\u003cb\u003e\u003cu\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cu\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eA Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn Amazon Editor's Favorite YA Book for Fall 2017 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn Amazon \u003cb\u003eSeptember\u003c\/b\u003e Best of the Month Pick — YA\/Teens\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eA\u003ci\u003e Hello Giggles \u003c\/i\u003eBest of September Pick\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eBustle\u003c\/i\u003e Best of September YA Pick\u003cbr\u003eA 2017 B\u0026amp;N Best Young Adult Book\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cu\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e★\u003c\/b\u003e “Imbue[d] with energy, fascinating\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ehistories, wisps of humor and, ultimately, grace. . . \u003cb\u003eEqual parts inspiring and good fun\u003c\/b\u003e.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cb\u003estarred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003cb\u003e[A] bewitching book\u003c\/b\u003e . . . Sutherland's fertile imagination makes this book a deep dive into the intricacies of family, friends, and personal history. . . . A \u003cb\u003efresh and compelling\u003c\/b\u003e look at mental illness.”—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[A] \u003cb\u003edarkly ironic tale\u003c\/b\u003e about an offbeat dysfunctional family.”—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cu\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“\u003cb\u003eRainbow Rowell devotees, John Green junkies\u003c\/b\u003e, and fans of \u003ci\u003eThis Song Will Save Your Life\u003c\/i\u003e by Leila Sales \u003cb\u003ewill find a lot to love here\u003c\/b\u003e.”—\u003ci\u003eSchool Library Journal\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cu\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003cb\u003e[I]mmediately hooks readers . . . \u003c\/b\u003eLibraries should purchase this for readers looking for something quite out of the ordinary.”—\u003ci\u003eVOYA\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003cb\u003eDark, magical, and humorous\u003c\/b\u003e, this is a quirky and cohesive novel about fear, depression, and obsession with death.”—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A]\u003cb\u003e magical take on mental illness\u003c\/b\u003e that feels very real.”—\u003ci\u003eBustle\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“The story is \u003cb\u003efantastic\u003c\/b\u003e. Making the most of \u003cb\u003emagic realism\u003c\/b\u003e and with a \u003cb\u003eperfectly paced \u003c\/b\u003eplot, easy-to-love characters, and a \u003cb\u003etouching \u003c\/b\u003earray of \u003cb\u003einteresting and relevant\u003c\/b\u003e topics, Sutherland’s book should be on everyone’s bookshelves…an \u003cb\u003ealluring\u003c\/b\u003e exploration of the human mental landscape.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Nerd Daily\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “\u003cb\u003eEntirely pure pleasure\u003c\/b\u003e, a \u003cb\u003esweet and heartfelt\u003c\/b\u003e story of love, fear, and mental illness. It’s \u003cb\u003efunny and touching in all the best ways\u003c\/b\u003e.”—\u003ci\u003eVox\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cu\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cu\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eOur Chemical Hearts\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003c\/u\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eIndies Introduce Summer 2016 Pick\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAutumn 2016 Kids' Indie Next List – \"Inspired Recommendations for Kids from Indie Booksellers\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003cb\u003eThe most romantic read of the season\u003c\/b\u003e is an arguably anti-YA story… It’s the \u003cb\u003ecomplex\u003c\/b\u003e chemistry between Henry and Grace that \u003cb\u003etouches the heart and doesn’t let go\u003c\/b\u003e.”—\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Eloquently conveying the complexity of love and grief, debut novelist Sutherland creates a story \u003cb\u003efilled with intriguing and memorable characters\u003c\/b\u003e.”—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This \u003cb\u003emuch-buzzed-about debut\u003c\/b\u003e captures the messy, awkward, all-consuming emotions of a teen’s first love.”—\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, Fall Books Preview\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This \u003cb\u003emagnificent debut\u003c\/b\u003e from 26-year-old Australian author Krystal Sutherland tracks the unlikely romance of Henry Page and Grace Town, two very different teens chosen to edit their high school paper together…You could probably learn a thing or two from [Henry’s] and Grace’s \u003cb\u003eemotional odyssey\u003c\/b\u003e.”—\u003ci\u003eTeen Vogue\u003c\/i\u003e, “October’s Best New YA Books”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “This book delves far deeper than the typical high school romance, and its \u003cb\u003esavvy wordplay\u003c\/b\u003e and Henry’s \u003cb\u003eself-deprecating charm\u003c\/b\u003e will win over fans of Stephen Chbosky’s \u003ci\u003eThe Perks of Being a Wallflower\u003c\/i\u003e and John Green’s \u003ci\u003eThe Fault in Our Stars\u003c\/i\u003e.”—\u003ci\u003eSchool Library Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I'm sorry to have to do this to you, but the love story of Henry and Grace is \u003cb\u003egoing to kick you in the emotional gut\u003c\/b\u003e.”—\u003ci\u003eBustle\u003c\/i\u003e, “Best New YA Novels Coming in October”\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eKrystal Sutherland was born and raised in Townsville, Australia—an inhospitable land where crocodiles, snakes, and jellyfish are always on the prowl. She grew up living directly across the road from the local library and spent almost every day after school (and weekends, too) having adventures between the pages of books (mainly because it was too dangerous to go outside).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She moved to Sydney for college (and safety), where she cut her writing teeth as the editor of the student magazine at the University of New South Wales. She kept gathering tales as an exchange student in Hong Kong and as a foreign correspondent in Amsterdam. Her first book, \u003ci\u003eOur Chemical Hearts\u003c\/i\u003e, was released in 2016, and was published in over twenty countries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Her three greatest fears are heights, dark caves . . . and (perhaps worst of all) frogs.\u003cb\u003e1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eThe Boy at the Bus Stop\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eESTHER SOLAR \u003c\/b\u003ehad been waiting outside Lilac Hill Nursing and Rehabilitation Center for half an hour when she received word that the curse had struck again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Rosemary Solar, her mother, explained over the phone that she would no longer, under any circumstances, be able to pick her daughter up. A cat black as night with demon-yellow slits for eyes had been found sitting atop the hood of the family car—an omen dark enough to prevent her from driving.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Esther was unfazed. The spontaneous development of phobias was not a new phenomenon in the Solar family, and so she made her way to the bus stop four blocks from Lilac Hill, her red cape billowing in the evening breeze and drawing a few stares from strangers along the way. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e On the walk, she thought about who normal people would call in a situation such as this. Her father was still interred in the basement he’d confined himself to six years ago, Eugene was AWOL (Esther suspected he’d slipped through another gap in reality—it happened to Eugene from time to time), and her grandfather no longer possessed the fine motor skills required to operate a vehicle (not to mention that he couldn’t remember that she was his granddaughter).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Basically, Esther had very few people who could bail her out of a crisis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The bus stop was empty for a Friday night. Only one other person sat there, a tall black guy dressed like a character from a Wes Anderson movie, complete with lime-green corduroy pants, a suede jacket, and a beret pulled down over his hair. The boy was sobbing quietly, so Esther did what you’re supposed to do when a complete stranger is showing too much emotion in your presence—she ignored him completely. She sat next to him and took out her tattered copy of \u003ci\u003eThe Godfather \u003c\/i\u003eand tried very hard to concentrate on reading it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The lights above them hummed like a wasp’s nest, flickering on and off. If Esther had kept her eyes down, the next year of her life would’ve turned out quite differently, but she was a Solar, and Solars had a bad habit of sticking their noses where they didn’t belong.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The boy sobbed dramatically. Esther looked up. A bruise was blooming across his cheekbone, plum-dark in the fluorescent light, and blood trickled from a split at his eyebrow. His patterned button up—clearly donated to a thrift store sometime in the mid- 1970s—was torn at the collar.\u003cbr\u003e The boy sobbed again, then peeked sideways at her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Esther generally avoided talking to people if it wasn’t completely necessary; she sometimes avoided people even when it \u003ci\u003ewas \u003c\/i\u003ecompletely necessary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Hey,” she said finally. “You okay?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Think I got mugged,” he said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “You \u003ci\u003ethink\u003c\/i\u003e?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Can’t remember.” He pointed to the wound at his forehead. “Took my phone and wallet though, so think I got mugged.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And that’s when she recognized him. “Jonah? Jonah Smallwood?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The years had changed him, but he still had the same wide eyes, the same strong jaw, the same intense stare he had even when he was a kid. He had more hair now: a shadow of stubble and a full head of thick black hair that sat up in a kind of pompadour style. Esther thought he resembled Finn from \u003ci\u003eThe Force Awakens\u003c\/i\u003e, which was, as far as she was concerned, a very good way to look. He glanced at her, at the Jackson Pollock painting of dark freckles smattered across her face and chest and arms, at the mane of peach red hair that fell past her hips. Trying to place her. “How do you know my name?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “You don’t remember me?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They’d only been friends for a year, and they’d only been eight at the time, but still. Esther felt a twinge of sadness that he’d apparently forgotten about her—she had certainly not forgotten about him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “We went to elementary school together,” Esther explained. “I was in Mrs. Price’s class with you. You asked me to be your valentine.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jonah had bought her a bag of Sweethearts and crafted a handmade card, on which was a drawing of two fruits and a line that read: \u003ci\u003eWe make the perfect pear. \u003c\/i\u003eInside, he had asked her to meet him at recess.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Esther had waited. Jonah hadn’t showed. In fact, she’d never seen him again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Until now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Oh yeah,” Jonah said slowly, recognition finally dawning on his face. “I liked you because you protested Dumbledore’s death outside the bookstore like a week after the movie came out.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e How Esther remembered it: little Esther, seven years old with a bright red bowl cut, picketing the local bookstore with a sign that read, SAVE THE WIZARDS. And then a snippet from the six o’clock news, a reporter kneeling next to her, asking her the question: “You do realize the book was published years ago and the ending can’t be changed?” and her blinking dumbly into the camera.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Back to reality: “I hate that there’s video evidence of that.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jonah nodded at her outfit, at the bloodred cape held at her throat by a ribbon and the wicker basket resting at her feet. “Looks like you’re still strange. Why are you dressed like Red Riding Hood?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Esther hadn’t had to answer questions about her predisposition for costumes for several years. Strangers on the street always assumed she was on her way to or from a costume party. Her teachers—much to their vexation—could find no fault with her outfits as far as the school’s dress code was concerned, and her classmates were used to her coming in dressed as Alice in Wonderland or Bellatrix Lestrange or whatever, and didn’t really care what she wore so long as she kept smuggling them cake. (More on this in a moment.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “I was visiting a grandparent. It seemed appropriate,” she said in reply, which appeared to satisfy Jonah, because he nodded like he understood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Look, you got any cash on you?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Esther did have cash on her, in her Little Red Riding Hood picnic basket. She had $55, all of it earmarked for her Get the Hell Out of This Podunk Town fund, which now stood at $2,235 in total. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Back to the previously mentioned cake. You see, in Esther’s junior year, East River High had instituted sweeping changes in the cafeteria until only healthy food was available. Gone were the pizzas and chicken nuggets and tots and fries and sloppy joes and nachos that made high school semibearable. The words “Michelle Obama” were now muttered in exasperation every time a new item was added to the menu, like leek and cauliflower soup or steamed broccoli pie. Esther had seen a budding business opportunity and made a box mix of double chocolate fudge brownies. She brought them into school the next day, where she sold each one for five dollars and made a cool profit of fifty bucks. Since then, she’d become the Walter White of junk food; such was the extent of her empire that her customers at school had dubbed her “Cakenberg.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She’d recently expanded her territory to Lilac Hill Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where the most exciting things on the menu were overcooked hot dog and bland mashed potato. Business was booming.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eWhy?\u003c\/i\u003e” she said slowly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “I need money for a bus fare. You give me cash, and I can use your phone to transfer funds from my bank account directly into yours.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It sounded slippery as all hell, but Jonah was bruised and bleeding and crying, and she still halfway saw him as the sweet young boy who’d once liked her enough to draw her a picture of two pears.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e So Esther said: “How much do you need?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “How much you got? I’ll take it all and transfer you that.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “I have fifty-five dollars.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “I’ll take fifty-five dollars.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jonah stood up and came to sit next to her. He was much taller than she thought, and thinner too, like a stalk of corn. She watched as he opened the banking app on her phone, logged in, filled in her account details as she gave them to him, and authorized the transfer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eFunds transfer successful, \u003c\/i\u003ethe app read.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e So she leaned down and opened her basket and gave him the fifty-five dollars she’d made at Lilac Hill today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Thank you,” Jonah said as he shook her hand. “You’re all right, Esther.” Then he stood, and winked, and was gone. Again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And that’s how, on a warm, damp evening at the end of summer, Jonah Smallwood swindled her out of fifty-five dollars and pickpocketed, in the space of approximately four minutes:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e -her grandmother’s bracelet, right off her wrist\u003cbr\u003e -her iPhone \u003cbr\u003e -a Fruit Roll-Up from her basket that she’d been saving for the ride home \u003cbr\u003e -her library card (which he later used to rack up $19.99 in replacement fees for defacing a copy of \u003ci\u003eRomeo and Juliet \u003c\/i\u003ewith lobster graffiti) \u003cbr\u003e -her copy of \u003ci\u003eThe Godfather \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e -her semi-definitive list of worst nightmares \u003cbr\u003e -and her dignity\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Esther kept replaying the cringeworthy memory of her Dumbledore protest in her head, and didn’t realize she’d been robbed until her bus arrived six minutes and nineteen seconds later, at which point she exclaimed to the driver, “I’ve been robbed!” To which the driver said, “No riffraff!” and closed the doors in her face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e (Perhaps Jonah didn’t steal all of her dignity—the bus driver took what shreds he hadn’t managed to scrape away from her bones.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e So you see, the story of how Esther Solar was robbed by Jonah Smallwood is quite straightforward. The story of how she came to love Jonah Smallwood is a little bit more complicated.","brand":"Nancy Paulsen Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44862584291557,"sku":"NP9780399546600","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780399546600.jpg?v=1767720779","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/a-semidefinitive-list-of-worst-nightmares-isbn-9780399546600","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}