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Don't Fail Me Now Audiobook
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Publisher Description
From the author of Like No Other, the novel Entertainment Weekly calls "One of the most poignant and star-crossed love stories since The Fault in Our Stars": What if the last hope to save your family is the person who broke it up to begin with?
"Fans of John Green, Rainbow Rowell, and Sharon Flake will find much to love in [Don't Fail Me Now]."
--School Library Journal
Michelle and her little siblings Cass and Denny are African-American and living on the poverty line in urban Baltimore, struggling to keep it together with their mom in jail and only Michelle’s part-time job at the Taco Bell to sustain them.
Leah and her stepbrother Tim are white and middle class from suburban Maryland, with few worries beyond winning lacrosse games and getting college applications in on time.
Michelle and Leah only have one thing in common: Buck Devereaux, the biological father who abandoned them when they were little.
After news trickles back to them that Buck is dying, they make the uneasy decision to drive across country to his hospice in California. Leah hopes for closure; Michelle just wants to give him a piece of her mind.
Five people in a failing, old station wagon, living off free samples at food courts across America, and the most pressing question on Michelle’s mind is: Who will break down first--herself or the car? All the signs tell her they won’t make it. But Michelle has heard that her whole life, and it’s never stopped her before....
Una LaMarche triumphs once again with this rare and compassionate look at how racial and social privilege affects one family in crisis in both subtle and astonishing ways.
From the Hardcover edition.
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“Narrator Adenrele Ojo eloquently expresses Michelle’s emotional reactions and reflections…Ojo skillfully negotiates Michelle’s shifting moods, the personalities and dynamics of all travelers, the trip’s turmoil, themes of racial and economic divisions, and Michelle’s resilience in the face of past and present pain. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
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“Una LaMarche gave us the swoons last year with Like No Other, and this time around she turns her attention from forbidden first love to a complicated family. But, don’t worry, Don’t Fail Me Now has the same poignant observations of racial and societal privilege weaved into a memorable story that you love her for.”
— Bustle.com -
“An excellent look at how race and socioeconomic status can impact children’s lives… Serious issues are tempered with humor for a very readable novel. Fans of John Green, Rainbow Rowell, and Sharon Flake will find much to love in [Don’t Fail Me Now]."
— School Library Journal -
"[Michelle’s] determination to survive in spite of everything is convincing, and her voice rings true. This story of teen resilience will resonate with readers.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Sometimes painful, sometimes hilarious, and always honest, Don’t Fail Me Now is impossible to put down and even harder to forget.”
— Cristina Moracho, author of Althea and Oliver
Awards
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A 2015 Junior Library Guild Selection
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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About Una LaMarche
Una LaMarche is a writer and journalist whose work appears regularly in the New York Observer and on the Huffington Post. She is the author of Five Summers, a young adult novel, and Unabrow, a collection of humorous essays as well as Like No Other. LaMarche lives in Brooklyn with her family.
About Adenrele Ojo
Adenrele Ojo is an actress, dancer, and audiobook narrator, winner of over a dozen Earphones Awards and the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2018. She made her on-screen debut in My Little Girl, starring Jennifer Lopez, and has since starred in several other films. She has also performed extensively with the Philadelphia Dance Company. As the daughter of John E. Allen, Jr., founder and artistic director of Freedom Theatre, the oldest African American theater in Pennsylvania, is no stranger to the stage. In 2010 she performed in the Fountain Theatre’s production of The Ballad of Emmett Till, which won the 2010 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for Best Ensemble. Other plays include August Wilson’s Jitney and Freedom Theatre’s own Black Nativity, where she played Mary.