Are You Alone on Purpose? - Softcover

Werlin, Nancy

3.72

621 ratings by Goodreads

9780142407776: Are You Alone on Purpose?

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142407771 ISBN 13: 9780142407776

Publisher: Speak, 2007

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

"A moving portrayal of two remarkable teenagers".
--School Library Journal
"Werlin invest[s] her characters with rich, strong personalities . . . . Her skill in sketching out family dynamics and probing the difficult issues of adolescence mark her as a writer worth watching".
--Publishers Weekly
Though fourteen-year-old Alison Shandling is a brain, her twin brother, Adam, is autistic. All of her life, Alison's parents have focused on Adam and what he needs, while Alison has always felt she had to be perfect.
When the rabbi's son, Harry Roth, begins taunting Alison about her brother, she does her best to stand up for herself. But when Harry is injured in a diving accident, Alison senses that he's hiding something that he wants to share with someone. And she begins to think that she's just the someone he can share it with . . . .
"This is a wonderful first novel. . . . Harry and Alison's tentative beginnings and tender friendship will strike a familiar chord with young people who cope with feelings of alienation from family and peers on a regular basis".
--VOYA

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Review:

[werlin�s] skill in sketching out family dynamics and probing the difficult issues of adolescence mark her as a writer worth watching. (Publishers Weekly)

About the Author:

Nancy Werlin writes YA fiction that ranges from realistic fiction to suspense to fantasy, often breaking the boundaries between genres. Her books have gathered awards too numerous to mention, but including National Book award finalist, Edgar award winner and finalist, New York Times bestseller, L.A. Book Prize finalist, and IndieBound Top Ten. Nancy's first novel, Are You Alone on Purpose, was a Publishers Weekly Flying Start pick.

Of Nancy's suspense fiction, Sarah Weinman says, "Chances are, many of you haven't heard of this author. That would be a shame, because she's simply one of the best crime novelists going right now. Period." These titles are where Nancy habitually breaks genre-separation rules and include The Rules of Survival (a National Book Award finalist), The Killer's Cousin (Edgar award winner), Locked Inside (Edgar award nominee), Black Mirror (which the Washington Post called "an edge-of-your seat thriller"), and Double Helix (named to multiple best-of-year book lists).

Nancy's unusual fantasy fiction was inspired by the ballad Scarborough Fair and includes the loose trilogy Impossible (a New York Times bestseller), Extraordinary (featuring a rare thing in fantasy fiction: a Jewish heroine), and her personal beloved, Unthinkable.

For fun, Nancy also writes and draws a graphic memoir in comics, using her Tumblr to self-publish an episode three times a week.

Her favorite book in all the world is Jane Eyre.

A graduate of Yale, Nancy lives near Boston, Massachusetts with her husband.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.