Thanks for the Trouble

by Tommy Wallach Narrated by Francisco Pryor Garat

Overview

A unique story about first-and last-loves from the celebrated and bestselling author of We All Looked Up.

Parker Santé hasn't spoken a word in five years. While his classmates plan for bright futures, he skips school to hang out in hotels, killing time by watching the guests. But when he meets a silver-haired girl named Zelda Toth, a girl who claims to be quite a bit older than she looks, he'll discover there just might be a few things left worth living for.

Editorial Reviews

MAY 2016 - AudioFile

Seventeen-year-old Parker has been unable to speak since his father’s death in a car accident years ago. Narrator Francisco Pryor Garat gives a subdued performance that reflects Parker’s detachment when he meets and spends two adventurous days with Zelda, a girl who defies categorization. Garat reads with a Spanish accent, an odd choice considering that Parker was born and raised in San Francisco speaking English. The accent becomes jarring when Garat uses it for Zelda’s dialogue as the character is said to be speaking in a Southern accent. Even so, Garat’s earnest tone gives words time to breathe and slowly builds the hope that grows in Parker and finally brings him back to the world. Unusual, surprising, and moving. A.F. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

The New York Times Book Review - Jeff Giles

…what's most endearing about Thanks for the Trouble [is] its tacit plea for connection and its affection for all the wounded eccentrics…Zelda's a sparkling creation, as mysterious as a mermaid…It's a pleasure to watch Zelda flirt, fling money and coax Parker out of what, emotionally speaking, is less a shell than a bunker. At its best, the novel carries a worthy message: No life is without pain—or promise.

Publishers Weekly

★ 11/09/2015
In response to a college application question (“What was the single most important experience of your life?”), Parker Santé, a mute, Hispanic 17-year-old, writes an incredible story. When he steals a wad of cash from a silver-haired, sharp-witted girl named Zelda, who is planning to throw herself off the Golden Gate Bridge, Parker isn’t sure what to make of her. After agreeing not to jump until her money is spent and Parker promises to apply to college, the two embark on a breakneck tour of parties, shopping, and confrontations with Parker’s mother, an alcoholic consumed by memories of her deceased husband. Parker may not believe that Zelda is, as she claims, 246 years old, but there’s no doubt that she helps him rediscover a longing to participate in the world. Wallach (We All Looked Up) delivers well-rounded, witty characters (“Thinking of your parents being young is like thinking of Winnie-the-Pooh going to the bathroom: just fucking weird”)—all contemplating whether living a full life is better than living a long one. Bittersweet moments intersect with the intricate fairy tales Parker writes, compelling readers to judge what is real and what is make-believe. Ages 14–up. Agent: John Cusick, Folio Literary Management. (Feb.)

The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

"Readers looking for a beautifully written philosophical romance will enjoy losing themselves in this one."

The Horn Book

Organic and well earned.

Shelf Awareness

"Jaded young readers and romantics alike will fall hard for Tommy Wallach's (author of We All Looked Up) underachieving writer of fairy tales and out-of-time wise woman as they tumble through a delirious three days of skinny dipping, drinking Champagne in a limo and rampant philosophizing. Cleverly but unobtrusively framed as a college application essay, Thanks for the Trouble plays with love, hubris and the youthful belief that more is always better."

VOYA

This novel is a good read-alike for John Green fans.

The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

"Readers looking for a beautifully written philosophical romance will enjoy losing themselves in this one."

School Library Journal

★ 01/01/2016
Gr 9 Up—After his father tragically died before his eyes five years prior, Parker Santé was left mute. Angry and a bit lost, he spends most of his days alone. He frequently ditches school to hang out in random hotels where he writes in his journal and steals from unsuspecting hotel guests. On one of these typical days, he notices a beautiful girl with striking silver hair. She catches his eye when revealing a large amount of money in an extravagant display of gratuitous tipping. Parker decides to steal her large wad of cash and accidentally leaves his journal behind—with a story about her written inside. When he reunites with her to get his journal, he discovers Zelda Toth is more than she appears. She claims to be over 200 years old but does not age. Wallach artfully crafts a novel that raises questions about mortality, the scarring impact of loss, and what it truly means to live and love. VERDICT A unique and compelling tale. The narrator's hilariously crass but poignant voice is sure to intrigue even the most reluctant of readers.—Ellen Fitzgerald, White Oak Library District, Lockport, IL

MAY 2016 - AudioFile

Seventeen-year-old Parker has been unable to speak since his father’s death in a car accident years ago. Narrator Francisco Pryor Garat gives a subdued performance that reflects Parker’s detachment when he meets and spends two adventurous days with Zelda, a girl who defies categorization. Garat reads with a Spanish accent, an odd choice considering that Parker was born and raised in San Francisco speaking English. The accent becomes jarring when Garat uses it for Zelda’s dialogue as the character is said to be speaking in a Southern accent. Even so, Garat’s earnest tone gives words time to breathe and slowly builds the hope that grows in Parker and finally brings him back to the world. Unusual, surprising, and moving. A.F. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2015-11-03
A high school senior who hasn't spoken in five years meets a mysterious girl who claims to be a lot older than possible. Silent Parker Santé loves fancy hotels, because they're beautiful and filled with rich people whose stuff he can swipe. While hanging out at San Francisco's Palace Hotel on Halloween, he's transfixed by a lovely, silver-haired girl who looks around his age. He steals her cash, but circumstances lead to him properly introducing himself to the girl, Zelda Toth. They swap some personal information, he writing and she talking: he's been mute since his father died in a car accident, and he writes short stories in spiral-bound notebooks; she plans to spend her last five grand and then jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Thus begins a whirlwind couple of days filled with unexpected firsts for Parker and possible lasts for Zelda. In a lesser writer's hands, Zelda (who claims to be nearly 250 years old) would have devolved into the ultimate manic pixie dream girl, but Wallach explores her journey with enough depth that her role isn't just to act as Parker's guide. The author of We All Looked Up (2015) manages to bypass the sophomore slump with this fascinating and romantic tale that's less about whether Zelda's really forever 18 and more about the power of sharing stories. An absorbing coming-of-age narrative about the power of connection. (Fiction. 14 & up)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170510184
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	02/23/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

Read an Excerpt

Thanks for the Trouble
THE BOY SAT ON A bench in the lobby of the Palace Hotel. It was about eight thirty in the morning, and he was supposed to be at school. But the boy had always thought it was a load of BS that you were expected to go to school on Halloween, so he’d decided not to. Maybe he’d go later. Maybe not. At this stage, it didn’t really make much of a difference either way.

The boy noticed he was drawing more attention than he usually did. He’d been to the Palace plenty of times before, but this was the first time he’d shown up on a weekday, and the place wasn’t busy enough for someone like him to go unremarked. He was dressed in dirty jeans and an old black T-shirt, and his hair was long and probably a mess (full disclosure: he hadn’t looked in the mirror before leaving the house that morning). Also, he was Latino, which made him one of the very few Latino people in the building who wasn’t there to bring room service to or clean up the dishes of or mop up the floors for old, rich, white people. To put it bluntly, he looked like he’d come there with some sort of criminal intention, which was racist and judgmental and totally non-PC.

It was also true.

That’s not to say that the boy looked like a thug. He was just your average teenager. Or a little above average, actually. Like, you’d probably think he was cute, if you had to weigh in one way or the other. Or not cute, maybe, but not not cute either. Just, like, your normal level of cuteness. A solid seven out of ten. Maybe a B/B+ on a good day, in the right light, taking the most forgiving possible position on his too-thick eyebrows and his weirdly prominent dimples when he smiled and his slight butt chin . . .

Fuck me. This is turning into a disaster, isn’t it?

I thought it would be better to write this in the third person, to give myself a little critical perspective. But it feels pretty messed up to write about whether I’m cute while pretending I’m not the one writing about whether I’m cute. It would be like writing your own recommendation letter or something.

Shit. I just noticed I used the F word up there. Oh, and now I’ve written “shit.” I guess I could go back and delete them, but I’d rather not. I mean, do we really have to play this game, where because I’m who I am and you’re who you are, we pretend that the word “fuck” doesn’t exist, and while we’re at it, that the action that underlies the word doesn’t exist, and I just puke up a bunch of junk about how some teacher changed my life by teaching me how Shakespeare was actually the world’s first rapper, or about the time I was doing community service with a bunch of homeless teenagers dying of cancer or something and felt the deep call of selfless action, or else I pull out all the stops and give you the play-by-play sob story of what happened to my dad, or some other terrible heartbreak of a thing that makes you feel so bummed out you figure, what the hell, we’ve got quotas after all, and this kid’s gotten screwed over enough, so you give me the big old stamp of approval and a fat envelope in the mail come April?

I say no. I say let’s not play games. You asked me a question—What was the single most important experience of your life?—and I’m going to answer it, even though my answer might be a little longer than five hundred words and might have the F word in it, and even the F action in it, and a whole lot of other stuff I’d have to be crazy to put down on paper and send to you. And then you’ll read my answer, and you’ll make your decision.

Let’s start over.

Nice to meet you. I’m Parker Santé. I am medium cute, and bad at writing in the third person. Here is how the most important experience of my life began.

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