Snowflake, AZ
WW Norton · Hardcover · September 17, 2019
From Printz medalist Marcus Sedgwick, a gripping novel about health—our own and our planet’s—and the stigma of illness.
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- Who it’s for
- A lean, literary read with a faintly off-kilter charge.
- Genres
- YA Illness & Disease Stories, Environmental YA, YA Sibling Stories
- Published
- WW Norton, September 17, 2019
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Start with this bookAbout this book
From Printz medalist Marcus Sedgwick, a gripping novel about health—our own and our planet’s—and the stigma of illness. Ash boards a Greyhound bus heading to the place where Bly was last seen: Snowflake, Arizona. Six thousand feet up in the wide red desert, Ash meets Mona, her dog, her goat, and her neighbors, and finds stepbrother Bly, too. In their ramshackle homes, the walls lined with tinfoil, almost all the residents of Snowflake are sick.
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But this isn’t any ordinary sickness: the chemicals and technologies of modern life are poisoning them. They call themselves canaries, living warning signs that humans have pushed the environment too far, except no one seems to be taking their warnings seriously. The healthy “normies” of Snowflake have written them off as a bunch of eccentrics, and when Ash too falls ill, the doctor’s response is “It’s all in your mind.” Snowflake, AZ contemplates illness and health—both our own and our planet’s. As Ash lives through a cycle of illness and recovery and loss, the world beyond is succumbing to its own affliction: a breakdown of civilization only distantly perceived by Ash and the isolated residents of Snowflake, from which there may or may not be a chance for recovery. This provocative novel by one of our most admired storytellers explores the resilience of love and community in the face of crisis.
Lean and Luminous
A lean, literary read with a faintly off-kilter charge.
Come here for
- short-story pacing
- lit-fic texture with YA category edges
Expect
- category-search curiosity
- a sustained, immersive spell
Where it sits
| Environmental YA | 73% |
|---|---|
| YA Illness & Disease Stories | 59% |
| YA Sibling Stories | 42% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- YA Illness & Disease Stories
- Literary YA
- Environmental YA
- Authors
- Marcus Sedgwick
- Publisher
- WW Norton
- Published
- September 17, 2019
- Format
- Hardcover
- Reading lane
- YA Illness & Disease Stories