Seventeen-year-old Parker Santé, a Latino American from San Francisco, describes the beautiful, silver-haired girl he meets (and attempts to rob) at a hotel restaurant as "something between an alien and a home-schooled kid."
Zelda Toth claims to have been born in Germany 246 years ago. She also claims she will jump off the Golden Gate Bridge as soon as she gets word that her elderly husband has passed away. Meanwhile, she has a huge stack of cash she's planning to give to the first needy person she sees. Is she crazy? Depressed? A compulsive liar? Parker, wholly smitten if unbelieving, is determined to change Zelda's mind about the bridge. Zelda strikes a deal: Parker will be the "recipient of [her] largesse"--but they'll have to spend the money together. In return, Parker, who hasn't said a word since his father died five years earlier (though he writes obsessively in his journals), and who claims to be "kinda schooled out," will go to college.
Jaded young readers and romantics alike will fall hard for Tommy Wallach's (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.
"But doesn't everyone want to be young and hot forever?"
"They only think they want it, Parker. But nobody really wants anything forever. Just for longer than they get it."
--Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor