American Delphi: A Novel

by M.C. Armstrong

Overview

During America's summer of plague and protest, fifteen-year-old Zora Box worries her pesky younger brother is a psychopath for sneaking out at night to hang with their suspicious new neighbor, Buck London, who's old enough to be their father. Their father, a combat veteran, is dead-suicide. Or so everyone thinks, until Buck sets Zora and her brother Zach straight, revealing their father as the genius inventor of a truth-telling, future-altering device called American Delphi.

 

Once Zora discovers the true history of her family, her life begins to change, and so do the paths of everyone around her, including a community of activists who descend on her neighborhood after the tragic death of Zora's best friend, a trans-teen named Aria, propelling Zora to activism and international hashtag status.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798985794137
Publisher:	MilSpeak Books, MilSpeak Foundation, Inc.
Publication date:	10/01/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	164
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

M.C. Armstrong is the author of The Mysteries of Haditha, published in 2020 by Potomac Books. The Brooklyn Rail called The Mysteries of Haditha one of the "Best Books of 2020," and Armstrong's story was nominated for "Best Memoir" at the 2021 American Book Festival. Armstrong, who grew up in Winchester, Virginia, embedded with Joint Special Operations Forces in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, in 2008. He published extensively on the Iraq war through The Winchester Star. He is the winner of a Pushcart Prize and his fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Esquire, The Missouri Review, The Gettysburg Review, Mayday, Monkeybicycle, Wrath-bearing Tree, Epiphany, War, Literature, and the Arts, The Literary Review, and other journals and anthologies. He teaches writing at Guilford College and is the guitarist and lead singer-songwriter for Viva la Muerte, an original rock and roll band. You can follow him on Twitter @mcarmystrong.

Editorial Reviews

2022-10-07
In Armstrong’s debut YA novel, a teenager is desperate to understand the world around her—one that feels convoluted and fractured.

Zora Box is 15 and stuck at home in Virginia during the early days of a pandemic involving an unnamed virus. Her mother is perfectly happy to butt into her business but is secretive about her own life—especially when it comes to Zora’s father, who had committed suicide eight years before. More alarmingly, her younger brother, Zach, has become preoccupied with Buck, a creepy guy who lives in their neighborhood and shows signs of being a racist. Zora, cooped up, sees the world mostly through social media and seeks signs wherever she goes, hoping for some direction and clarity. When she catches her brother sneaking out of the house and follows him, she makes a discovery that causes her to question everything she knows and to try and figure out how she, a privileged White girl, can best pursue social justice. The author relates Zora’s story through her journal entries, offering readers an intriguing kaleidoscope of grief, romantic feelings, boredom, and body image issues but also addresses the challenges of being young in a turbulent world. It’s difficult to weave together a convincing tale of global conspiracy and a suburban coming-of-age story, but Armstrong manages to do so. The plot contains too many coincidences, and a few key moments are a bit too easy to predict. The work also pays little attention to the deadly effects of the worldwide virus and how it affects Zora and her brother. Still, the story remains compelling, with descriptions that draw on all the senses—a wonderful contrast to Zora’s musings about experiencing the world mostly through screens.

An engaging story of current events and social justice for teen readers.

Kirkus Reviews