{"product_id":"the-wonder-bread-summer-a-novel-isbn-9780062199553","title":"The Wonder Bread Summer: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e“Picaresque, properly funny, unpredictable and altogether irrepressible.” —Nick Hornby, \u003cem\u003eThe Believer\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJessica Anya Blau, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Summer of Naked Swim Parties \u003c\/em\u003eand\u003cem\u003e Mary Jane\u003c\/em\u003e, delivers a darkly hilarious, heartbreaking coming-of-age novel with \u003cem\u003eThe Wonder Bread Summer\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eThe Wonder Bread Summer\u003c\/em\u003e, loosely based on \u003cem\u003eAlice in Wonderland\u003c\/em\u003e, 20-year-old Allie Dodgson has adventures that rival those Alice had down the rabbit hole. Or those of Weeds’ Nancy Botwin.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAllison is working at a dress shop to help pay for college. The dress shop turns out to be a front for drug dealers. And Allison ends up on the run—with a Wonder Bread bag full of cocaine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith a hit man after her, Allison wants the help of her parents. But there’s a problem: Her mom took off when Allison was eight; her dad moves so often Allison that doesn’t even have his phone number….\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet in 1980s California, \u003cem\u003eThe Wonder Bread Summer \u003c\/em\u003eis a wickedly funny and fresh caper that’s sure to please fans of Christopher Moore, Carl Hiaasen, and Marcy Dermansky.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003eIt's 1983 in Berkeley, California. Twenty-year-old Allie Dodgson is a straitlaced college student working part-time at a dress shop to make ends meet. But when the shop turns out to be a front for a dangerous drug-dealing business, Allie finds herself on the lam, speeding toward Los Angeles in her best friend's Prelude with a Wonder Bread bag full of cocaine riding shotgun and a hit man named Vice Versa on her tail. You can't find a more thrilling summer read!\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“A book by Blau would be disappointing without pot smoking, hilarious and sometimes grungy sex, and bickering relatives.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It’s hard to recall a debut as warm, charming and comically satisfying as The Summer of Naked Swim Parties . . . Blau conveys Jamie’s world with compelling insight and wit . . . [Blau’s] sharp observation and affectionate humor [give] surprising depth to this shimmering novel.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This book will make you laugh and cry in public. Jessica Anya Blau has written a soaring teenage lament, perfectly pitched, containing the single saddest and funniest line of seduction ever uttered.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLarry Doyle, author of I Love You, Beth Cooper\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Jessica Anya Blau has taken the story of a young woman’s search for self and rendered it into a hilarious, cocaine-fueled thrill-ride. From its Tarantino-esque opening scene to its twisty final pages, THE WONDER BREAD SUMMER is an unrelenting delight.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJon Michaud, author of When Tito Loved Clara\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A rollicking, irreverent, sweep of a novel. Blau has written another shining, no-holds barred California heart breaker.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDeborah Reed, author of Carry Yourself Back To Me\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In \u003ci\u003eThe Wonder Bread Summer\u003c\/i\u003e, Jessica Anya Blau returns with all the comedic powers of a master trickster. Her astonishing ability to both stun and disarm, shock and smite the reader using humor and a new kit of outrageous antics and 1980’s characters, tosses us deep into humanity’s darker waters of loss and abandonment while simultaneously yanking us back onto the bows of our buoyant but fragile boats. Her heroine, Allie, a college co-ed, is enmeshed in a cohort of petty cocaine thieves, aging rock stars, Billy Idol, and a porn star producer in a wheelchair that only Hunter Thompson would embrace. Add Allie’s pathetic, absentee mother and a peripatetic father to the mix and it’s a mad, mad care chase up and down California’s sunny coasts. Urged on by the voice of her dead, Chinese grandmother, Allie flees for her life and lunges toward personal truths that promise to set her free.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJessica Keener, author of the nationally-bestselling novel Night Swim\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Jessica Anya Blau is a fearless, hilarious writer, with a genius for pacing and a massive gift for creating fabulous characters. In The Wonder Bread Summer, through the adorable, although not completely innocent, college student Allie, we get to live through a California summer in 1983  in all its glory: cocaine, Candie’s high heels, sexual misconduct and even Billy Idol! Blau has crafted a  totally unique coming of age story, wrapped in a road trip with a  drug caper center. It’s a  wild, exuberant novel, full of humor, heart and a solid dose of bad behavior. I loved it.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePaula Bomer, author of Nine Months\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Picaresque, properly funny, unpredictable and altogether irrepressible...[Blau] reminds me of [Charles] Portis in a lot of ways . . . [S]he has a steady nerve, as well as a wicked imagination, and she takes her craft seriously... Top-notch comic writing.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNick Hornby, The Believer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“In \u003ci\u003eThe Wonder Bread Summer\u003c\/i\u003e, Jessica Anya Blau sends us tumblin down a rabbit hole of youthful mistakes and heartache, alongside the unsinkable Allie Dodgson. Coming of age has never been so wickedly thrilling.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTania James, author of Aerogrammes and Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Wonder Bread Summer\u003c\/i\u003e is the best ever! It even made me a little jealous and that doesn’t happen often.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMadison Smartt Bell\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBlau’s madcap chase through 1980s L.A. is over-the-top and...a liberal dose of dark humor and an oddly heart-warming ending add to the twisted ride. - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Raunchy, poignant, and triumphant in turn--and sometimes manages to be all three at the same time.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A fun read! Even before the buzzard hits the windshield, THE WONDER BREAD SUMMER will make you feel better about your worst summer vacation.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChristopher Moore, New York Times-bestselling author of Lamb and A Dirty Job\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No one writes like Jessica Anya Blau. Funny, tender, and outrageous.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMichael Downs, author of The Greatest Show\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Jessica Anya Blau has the gift of creating people we feel and know as familiar, nad then showing us how much we don’t know them at all. She writes bravely from under surfaces. Wonder Bread Summer takes on the journey of a young woman with a cocaine problem but, told with humor and depth, it gives us a story more about selfhood than drugs. The prose--simple and transparent--allows for empathy, and the recognition of ourselves in her character. A deeply disturbing yet playful book. \u003ci\u003eThe Wonder Bread Summer\u003c\/i\u003e is a quite beautiful book written by an author who surely knows her craft.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLeora Skolkin-Smith, author of Hystera\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Jessica Anya blau has the gift of creating people we feel and know as familiar, and then showing us how much we don’t know them at all.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLeora Skolkin-Smith, author of Hystera\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This novel is addictive! I was hooked the moment straight-arrow Allie steals a bread bag full of blow...You won’t be able to look away.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMary Kay Zuravelff, author of Man Alive!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Jessica Anya Blau’s \u003ci\u003eThe Wonder Bread Summer\u003c\/i\u003e is a lightning strike of a novel, sexy and dangerous and aglow with adventure. Allie is a tenacious and deliciously complicated heroine, and it’s impossible to resist the ride she takes you on.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLaura van den Berg, author of What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This is as fast, fun, and outrageous a book as I’ve read in a long time. But beneath all the antics is a poignant story about racial identity, fathers and daughters, and coming of age in one totally messed-up decade.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMatthew Norman, author of Domestic Violets\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Jessica Anya Blau returns with all the comedic powers of a master trickster.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJessica Keener, author of the nationally-bestselling novel Night Swim\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This novel is addictive! I was hooked the moment straight-arrow Allie steals a bread bag full of blow, and I flipped the pages faster than she could drive from one destination to another. How many wrongs make a right? The author poses that question as she sends Allie head-on into drug, family, and boy trouble. You won’t be able to look away.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMary Kay Zuravleff, author of Man Alive\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I think this book is laced with something! I swear I could not put it down. Jessica Anya Blau writes so well about a young woman in a dangerous place, and is often hilarious and lewd, and also sincere and moving, like the naughty Southern Californian soul mate of Nick Hornby.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMatthew Klam, author of Sam the Cat, and other stories\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Often hilarious and lewd, and also sincere and moving, like the naughty Southern Californian soul mate of Nick Hornby.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMatthew Klam, author of Sam the Cat, and other stories\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Blau has crafted a totally uniqu coming of age story, wrapped in a road trip, with a drug caper center. It’s a wild, exuberant novel, full of humor, heart, and a solid dose of bad behavior. I loved it.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePaula Bomer, author of 9 Months\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No one wirtes like Jessica Anya Blau. Funny, tender, and outrageous, \u003ci\u003eThe Wonder Bread Summer\u003c\/i\u003e is more than a road trip through 1980s California. It’s a caper about race and sex, cocaine and rock n’ roll, with unforgettable characters who will say or do anything, and who find kindness in the most unexpected places.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMichael Downs, author of The Greatest Show\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Harper Perennial","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44888119967973,"sku":"NP9780062199553","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780062199553.jpg?v=1730228197","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-wonder-bread-summer-a-novel-isbn-9780062199553","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}