The Beginning of Everything

by Robyn Schneider

Overview

Robyn Schneider's The Beginning of Everything is a witty and heart-wrenching teen novel that will appeal to fans of books by John Green and Ned Vizzini, novels such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and classics like The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye.

Varsity tennis captain Ezra Faulkner was supposed to be homecoming king, but that was before—before his girlfriend cheated on him, before a car accident shattered his leg, and before he fell in love with unpredictable new girl Cassidy Thorpe.

As Kirkus said in a starred review, "Schneider takes familiar stereotypes and infuses them with plenty of depth. Here are teens who could easily trade barbs and double entendres with the characters that fill John Green's novels."

Funny, smart, and including everything from flash mobs to blanket forts to a poodle who just might be the reincarnation of Jay Gatsby, The Beginning of Everything is a refreshing contemporary twist on the classic coming-of-age novel—a heart-wrenching story about how difficult it is to play the part that people expect, and how new beginnings can stem from abrupt and tragic endings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062217141
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	07/29/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	70,547
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.90(d)
Lexile:	930L (what's this?)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Robyn Schneider is the bestselling author of The Beginning of Everything, Extraordinary Means, and Invisible Ghosts, which have earned numerous starred reviews, appeared on many state reading lists, and been published in over a dozen countries. She is a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied creative writing, and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where she earned a master of bioethics. She lives in Los Angeles, California, but also on the internet. You can find her at www.robynschneider.com.

Editorial Reviews

Robyn Schneider can write.

New York Times Book Review

The Beginning of Everything is a tragic romance of the best kind that leaves the reader feeling as though they are part of the story, and wishing there was more.

Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

Dazzling. Full of razor-sharp wit, a keen sense of observation, and surprisingly tender compassion.

Jeannette Walls

Robyn Schneider can write.” %COMM_CONTRIB%New York Times Book Review

First-time novelist Schneider offers an engrossing romance in which tragedy brings two teens together, then threatens to tear them apart. Ezra Faulkner has a bright future as a tennis player until a car accident leaves him with a serious knee injury. Along with losing his spot on the team and his prospects of being recruited by colleges, he is dropped by his popular clique (“I had been Ezra Faulkner, golden boy, but that person no longer existed”). At the onset of senior year, he makes major changes, rekindling a childhood friendship he’d dropped after a gruesome mishap, joining the debate team, and getting to know Cassidy Thorpe, an the enigmatic new student with a reputation as a stellar debater. Ezra is mesmerized by Cassidy’s intelligence, wit, and philosophical ideas, but after they become a couple, her mood swings set off unexpected sparks. Tension builds as Cassidy’s past comes to light, and a shocking climax culminates in an emotional crash to rival Ezra’s physical one. Schneider shows remarkable skill at getting inside her narrator’s head as his life swings between disaster and recovery. Ages 13–up. Agent: Merrilee Heifetz, Writers House. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

This thought-provoking novel about smart kids doing interesting things will resonate with the John Green contingent, as it is tinged with sadness, high jinks, wry humor, and philosophical pondering in equal measures.

Booklist (starred review)

Heartbreaking and hilarious. I have no doubt that girls everywhere are going to fall madly, deeply, hopelessly in love with Ezra Faulkner.

Sarah Mlynowski

Smart, funny, heartbreaking, and so true it hurts…this is a book you will never forget.

Lauren Barnoldt

A witty and unexpected, smartly-crafted and slightly twisted coming-of-age story.

Julia DeVillers

Gr 9 Up—Ezra Faulkner believes that everyone has a tragedy waiting to happen that will be their life-changing moment. In the summer before seventh grade, his best friend, Toby, had his moment when he inadvertently caught the severed head of a boy who was decapitated on a ride in Disneyland. Ezra ended his friendship with Toby after that. Now 17, Ezra encounters his own tragic watershed event: he finds his girlfriend cheating on him and then has a car accident that ends his tennis career. He returns to school for his last year a broken boy who has shunned his jock friends and just wants to make it through life unnoticed. By reconnecting with Toby and developing a relationship with Cassidy, a new girl who has a secretive past and home life, Ezra gets the chance to remake himself into someone who lives rather than just exists. Though Ezra's old friends are depicted as stereotypes, they help to emphasize the attributes of his new friends, who are quirky, smart, and funny. This is a wonderfully told story. The dialogue moves the plot along at a fast pace, and Ezra, with all his flaws, is a character to whom readers can relate. Teens won't want to put this one down until the mystery of Cassidy is unraveled at the end.—Elizabeth Kahn, Patrick F. Taylor Science & Technology Academy, Jefferson, LA

School Library Journal

Smart writing and a compelling narrator raise this book above ordinary depictions of high school drama. After finding his vapid girlfriend going down on another guy, Ezra Faulkner is seriously injured in a hit-and-run accident, leaving him out of the loop with the jock-and-cheerleader set. When senior year begins, he gravitates toward his old friend Toby, no stranger to tragedy himself. Toby and his debate team welcome Ezra to their lunch table when they find out that the prom king is as smart and funny as they are. Schneider takes familiar stereotypes and infuses them with plenty of depth. Here are teens who could easily trade barbs and double-entendres with the characters that fill John Green's novels. Ezra falls in love with Cassidy, an enigmatic transfer student fascinated by Foucault's notion of society as panopticon, flash mobs and puns. Ezra is forced to confront his complacency about the direction his life has been taking, but it's an uneasy passage. The author takes care with the telling of Ezra's story, allowing time to develop her characters. Narrator Ezra's point of view is an unusual one, that of an introspective athlete reflecting on events from the slight remove of his first year in college. Efficient use of language, evocative descriptions and subtle turns of phrase make reading and rereading this novel a delight. (Fiction. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews