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Published Sep 2014
336 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
In this Mean Girls meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower tale, narrator Anika Dragomir is the third most popular girl at Pound High School. But inside, she knows she's a freak; she can't stop thinking about former loner Logan McDonough, who showed up on the first day of tenth grade hotter, bolder, and more mysterious than ever. Logan is fascinating, troubled and off-limits. The Pound High queen bee will make Anika's life hell if she's seen with him.
So Anika must choose - ignore her feelings and keep her social status? Or follow her heart and risk becoming a pariah. Which will she pick? And what will she think of her choice when an unimaginable tragedy strikes, changing her forever? An absolutely original new voice in YA in a story that will start important conversations - and tear at your heart.
"Starred Review. while the final chapters flirt with melodrama, the novel will leave many readers dwelling on missed opportunities to take a stand in their own lives. Ages 14–up." - Publishers Weekly
"Told in the first person, Anika's droll voice shines, and her emotions are palpable. After a heartbreaking tragedy, Anika's ending, if not particularly realistic, will leave readers cheering." - School Library Journal
"A compelling debut for teens from adult novelist Portes (Hick, 2007, etc.)." - Kirkus
"Anika Dragomir is the funniest, snarkiest, most insightful misfit a reader could ever hope to meet. I laughed my way through Anatomy of a Misfit right up until the very end, when the book broke my heart into a million pieces. " - Melissa Kantor, author of Maybe One Day and The Breakup Bible
This information about Anatomy of a Misfit was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Andrea Portes is the bestselling novelist of the critically lauded adult novel, Hick. The book was her debut and has since been made into a feature film starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Alec Baldwin, Blake Lively, Eddie Redmayne, and Juliette Lewis. Bury This, her second novel, was published in January 2014 by Soft Skull Press. Anatomy of a Misfit is her third novel, and her first for young adult readers.
Andrea grew up shuffled around between such disparate locales as Nebraska, Brasília, Texas, Rio de Janiero, Baltimore, North Dakota, California, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. Finally, Andrea was granted relief from this nomadic existence when she was accepted to Bryn Mawr College. She attended on full scholarship and later graduated cum laude, with a major in English literature. She then earned her master's in fine arts degree from UC San Diego.
After her relentless education, Andrea moved to the neighborhood of Echo Park in Los Angeles, where she spent years mostly getting into trouble. It was in this period of vague nothingness that Andrea penned her debut novel, in longhand in three notebooks. Currently, she lives in the neighborhood of Los Feliz, in Los Angeles.
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