Acidly funny and compulsively readable, Mercedes Helnwein's debut novel Slingshot is a story about two people finding each other and then screwing it all up. See also: soulmate, friendship, stupidity, sex, bad poetry, and all the indignities of being in love for the first time.

Grace Welles had resigned herself to the particular loneliness of being fifteen and stuck at a third-tier boarding school in the swamps of Florida, when she accidentally saves the new kid in her class from being beaten up. With a single aim of a slingshot, the monotonous mathematics of her life are obliterated forever...because now there is a boy in it that she never asked for. Wade Scholfield.

With Wade, Grace discovers a new way to exist. School rules are optional, life is bizarrely perfect, and conversations about wormholes can lead to make-out sessions that disrupt any logical stream of thought.

So why does Grace crush Wade's heart into a million tiny pieces? And what are her options when she finally realizes that 1. The universe doesn't revolve around her, and 2. Wade has been hiding a dark secret? Is Grace the only person unhinged enough to save him?

Eleanor and Park meets Ladybird in this outstanding debut novel.

True love has the worst aim in this darkly funny tale of a boy and a girl who find each other and then screw it all up.

About the Author
Mercedes Helnwein is a visual artist and writer. She was born in Vienna, Austria, and grew up in Germany, Ireland, and partially the US and the UK. Instead of going to college she moved to L.A. where she began putting on art shows with her friends and selling her drawings. Her obsession with writing began at age ten when she wrote her first short story for a school assignment - The Celery Stick Who Became President. She currently lives and works in L.A. and Ireland.

Reviews
All the terror and wonder of that first true love, masterfully detailed with true emotional rigor and blinding wit. My fifteen-year-old self wants to scream into a pillow with joy. -- David Yoon, New York Times bestselling author of * Frankly in Love *
Glittering and irreverent, Helnwein has crafted an iconic character for the ages in sharp-tongued iconoclast, Gracie Welles. Beautiful prose, characters that breathe, and a voice so thick you could swim in it-I am fully here for this book. -- - * David Arnold, New York Times bestselling author of The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik and Mosquitoland *



Book Information
ISBN 9781529058185
Author Mercedes Helnwein
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Macmillan Children's Books
Publisher Pan Macmillan
Weight(grams) 252g
Dimensions(mm) 197mm * 130mm * 23mm