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Look Inside | Reading Guide
Reading Guide
May 26, 2015 | ISBN 9780307743930 Buy
Jul 08, 2014 | ISBN 9780385534840 Buy
Jul 08, 2014 | 496 Minutes Buy
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Available from:
May 26, 2015 | ISBN 9780307743930
Jul 08, 2014 | ISBN 9780385534840
Jul 08, 2014 | ISBN 9780307917461
496 Minutes
A heartbreaking, wildly inventive, and moving novel narrated by a teenage runaway, from the bestselling author of Midwives and The Sandcastle Girls.A Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Best Book of the YearEmily Shepard is on the run; the nuclear plant where her father worked has suffered a cataclysmic meltdown, and all fingers point to him. Now, orphaned, homeless, and certain that she’s a pariah, Emily’s taken to hiding out on the frigid streets of Burlington, Vermont, creating a new identity inspired by her favorite poet, Emily Dickinson. Then she meets Cameron. Nine years old and with a string of foster families behind him, he sparks something in Emily, and she protects him with a fierceness she didn’t know she possessed. But when an emergency threatens the fledgling home she’s created, Emily realizes that she can’t hide forever.
A heartbreaking, wildly inventive, and moving novel narrated by a teenage runaway, from the bestselling author of Midwives and The Sandcastle Girls.Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is the story of Emily Shepard, a homeless teen living in an igloo made of ice and trash bags filled with frozen leaves. Half a year earlier, a nuclear plant in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom had experienced a cataclysmic meltdown, and both of Emily’s parents were killed. Devastatingly, her father was in charge of the plant, and the meltdown may have been his fault. Was he drunk when it happened? Thousands of people are forced to flee their homes in the Kingdom; rivers and forests are destroyed; and Emily feels certain that as the daughter of the most hated man in America, she is in danger. So instead of following the social workers and her classmates after the meltdown, Emily takes off on her own for Burlington, where she survives by stealing, sleeping on the floor of a drug dealer’s apartment, and inventing a new identity for herself — an identity inspired by her favorite poet, Emily Dickinson. When Emily befriends a young homeless boy named Cameron, she protects him with a ferocity she didn’t know she had. But she still can’t outrun her past, can’t escape her grief, can’t hide forever—and so she comes up with the only plan that she can. A story of loss, adventure, and the search for friendship in the wake of catastrophe, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is one of Chris Bohjalian’s finest novels to date—breathtaking, wise, and utterly transporting.
CHRIS BOHJALIAN is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of twenty-one books, including The Red Lotus, Midwives, and The Flight Attendant, which will be an HBO Max limited series later this year starring Kaley Cuoco. His other books include… More about Chris Bohjalian
“A compelling tale of loss, resilience, and transformation.” —The Boston Globe, “Pick of the Week”“Suspenseful, provocative, often terrifying yet compassionate. . . . One of the most memorable teenage protagonists in recent fiction.” —The Washington Post “Heartbreaking. . . . This is an adult novel . . . but readers of any age who love John Green’s novels might find [Emily]’s story, sobering as it is, an awesome one.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “Stirring, sensitive. . . . One of the most authentic and distinctive voices since Emma Donoghue’s [Room].” —San Francisco Chronicle “I have a new favorite Chris Bohjalian novel. Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is a book I wish I’d been smart enough to write: a masterpiece of narrative voice.” —Jodi Picoult“Chris Bohjalian is a master. . . . Emily Shepard is his greatest accomplishment.” —Los Angeles Times “A chilling and heartbreaking suspense novel.” —USA Today “Enthralling and indelible.” —People “Intelligent, rich in detail, filled with full-blooded characters…. Bohjalian at his finest.” —The Seattle Times “A ‘must read’ book.” —St. Louis Post Dispatch “Haunting and resonant.” —The Miami Herald“Emily’s character is written so well and her story so absorbing (this is very much a read-in-one-or-two-sittings type of book) that it is easy to forget you’re actually reading . . . Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands reminds us of our innate need for connection.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette“A masterful storyteller . . . Bohjalian hits every note. His characters have depth, his story sings.” —The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA) “Bohjalian delivers a thoroughly engrossing and poignant coming-of-age story set against a nightmarish backdrop as real as yesterday’s headlines from Fukushima and Chernobyl. And in Emily he’s created a remarkable and complicated teenager . . . [with] a wry, honest voice as distinctive as Holden Caulfield’s.” —Associated Press “Dazzling. . . . A novel for the ages. . . . This is pure beauty in book form.” —The Free-Lance Star (Fredericksburg, VA)“A potent story of loss, hope, and the overpowering yearning for home.” —The Armenian Weekly “Rings with poetry and truth.” —Library Journal“A dystopian nightmare entwined with a wrenching personal crisis . . . The notion of ‘just a life I left’ grows more intense for somebody like Emily Shepard who can’t return and is unsure about how to go forward.” —Burlington Free Press “[A] brave saga.” —Booklist “Impressive. . . . [Emily’s] admiration for kindred spirit Emily Dickinson serves to humanize her plight, as does an epiphany in the book’s bittersweet conclusion.” —Publishers Weekly “Bohjalian once again reveals an uncanny talent for crafting a young female protagonist who is fatally flawed, but nevertheless immensely likable. . . . Resonates with a message of hope, truth and the fragility of life.” —BookPage “Emily’s voice is a compelling one… and hers is a journey readers will avidly follow.” —Kirkus Reviews
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