It’s been two years since Joel last experienced What Was Wrong With Him and eight years since The Bad Thing Happened. Now Joel is seventeen and seemingly “normal,” with a new prescription from his therapist: a part-time job. Joel finds work at the local video store amid a motley crew of young people who each answer to a movie character name (“Scarlet” from Gone with the Wind, “Poppins” for Mary Poppins, “The Godfather,” “Hannibal”—you get the idea). It’s a fresh start, and at ROYO Video Joel (who goes by “Solo,” after Han Solo) works to keep his tabula rasa while climbing the not-so-corporate ladder. Soon he befriends rough-around-the-edges “Baby” (from Dirty Dancing, though don’t even joke about putting her in a corner), a prickly girl with terrific taste in movies. As circumstances throw Baby and Solo together, Joel realizes that for the first time in nearly a decade, he has a chance to make a real friend—one who wouldn’t land him back in the psychiatric ward. But as Baby pushes for Joel to open up to her, he starts to wonder if their friendship can possibly survive the devastating truths from his past. Set in a pop-culture-rich 1990s, this remarkable story tackles challenging and timely themes with huge doses of wit, power, and heart.
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