The Kids Are Gonna Ask: A Novel

by Gretchen Anthony

Overview

A 2021 Alex Award Winner!

“A sparkling tale about fame and family… Fans of Elizabeth Berg and J. Ryan Stradal will relish the novel’s humor, spark, and verve.” —Booklist

“Smart yet surprisingly sweet, this meditation on family and media is as captivating as a favorite podcast.” —Shelf Awareness

“Moving, humorous, and briskly-paced.” —J. Ryan Stradal, New York Times bestselling author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest and The Lager Queen of Minnesota

A whip-smart, entertaining novel about twin siblings who become a national phenomenon after launching a podcast to find the biological father they never knew.

The death of Thomas and Savannah McClair’s mother turns their world upside down. Raised to be fiercely curious by their grandmother Maggie, the twins become determined to learn the identity of their biological father. And when their mission goes viral, an eccentric producer offers them a dream platform: a fully sponsored podcast called The Kids Are Gonna Ask. To discover the truth, Thomas and Savannah begin interviewing people from their mother’s past and are shocked when the podcast ignites in popularity. As the attention mounts, they get caught in a national debate they never asked for—but nothing compares to the mayhem that ensues when they find him.

Cleverly constructed, emotionally perceptive and sharply funny, The Kids Are Gonna Ask is a rollicking coming-of-age story and a moving exploration of all the ways we can go from lost to found.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780778308744
Publisher:	Park Row Books
Publication date:	07/28/2020
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	1,115,166
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

GRETCHEN ANTHONY is the award-winning author of The Kids Are Gonna Ask, recipient of the 2021 Alex Award from the American Library Association. Her debut novel, Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners, was a Midwestern Connections Pick and a best books pick by Amazon, BookBub, PopSugar, and the New York Post. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Medium, and The Write Life, among others. She lives in Minneapolis with her family.

Editorial Reviews

03/30/2020

In Anthony’s brisk coming-of-age story (after Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners), a high school podcast project goes viral when the hosts search for their unknown father. Sophomores Thomas and Savannah McClaire have lived with their grandmother, Maggie, in Minneapolis, since the death of their mother, Bess, two years earlier. The twins launch a podcast called McClaire Dinner Salon, documenting conversations between Maggie and her acquaintances. For a year, the twins’ audience plateaus at 300 listeners, until an episode addresses the mystery of their biological father’s identity, which attracts interest from Guava Media and a sensational producer whose credits include It’s Only Murder. As the teens work with Guava, their audience grows and the show attracts national media attention. One of the show’s previous guests, a friend of Bess’s from college, questions the ethics of the show on a talk radio program (“They’re kids. Asking very personal questions about a very private matter”). As Anthony reveals in an early flash-forward, the twins become overwhelmed and lock themselves in Maggie’s house, with protestors and supporters crowding outside. Anthony’s story is full of surprises and thoughtful reflections on the expiration date for family secrets. Like a successfully twisty podcast, this delivers the goods. (May)

Publishers Weekly

A shrewd commentary on our viral culture… Readers will be drawn to the [McClairs’] drama and root for them.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Funny, fast-paced… Smart yet surprisingly sweet, this meditation on family and media is as captivating as a favorite podcast.” —Shelf Awareness

“A sparkling tale about fame and family… readers will turn the pages quickly. Fans of Elizabeth Berg and J. Ryan Stradal will relish the novel's humor, spark, and verve.” —Booklist

"Moving, humorous, and briskly-paced, The Kids Are Gonna Ask is a pure portrait of Minnesota nice, filled with empathy, wisdom, and characters you'll love to root for." —J. Ryan Stradal, New York Times bestselling author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest and The Lager Queen of Minnesota

“Going viral takes on a whole new meaning in this wry and humane look at the unintended consequences of inviting the world into your private life. The Kids Are Gonna Ask is a touching, wonderful novel about the discoveries we make when the simplest questions spark the most complicated answers.” —Abbi Waxman, bestselling author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill and Other People’s Houses

"Not your typical family saga... The Kids Are Gonna Ask is a quirky tale that puts on a new spin on the ancestry.com and 23andMe craze by putting one set of siblings' search for their biological father into the limelight. Anthony captures millennial fervor perfectly in this thoroughly modern story. I truly enjoyed it!" —Elyssa Friedland, author of The Floating Feldmans

"Totally original, filled with quirky and heartfelt characters that leap to life off the page. The Kids Are Gonna Ask explores the complexities of familial love and the search for a biological father that quickly escalates into a national controversy. Gretchen Anthony has her pen on the pulse of today’s social media culture and delivers a page-turning novel that could very well go viral." —Renee Rosen, author of Park Avenue Summer

“Gretchen Anthony’s The Kids Are Gonna Ask is a smart, engaging send-up of our modern age wrapped up in a story too delicious to put down. With a lovable matriarch, a pair of insightful kids, a spot-on villain and even a ghost or two for good measure, plan to get totally sucked in to the tweets, texts, and podcasts that pepper this funny, heartfelt exploration of what makes us who we are.” —Kelly Harms, bestselling author of The Overdue Life of Amy Byler

“Relatives: can’t live without them… or can you? In The Kids Are Going to Ask, twins Thomas and Savannah McClair team up with their grandmother to find the father they’ve never known—only to discover that their tech skills are, ironically, no match for the intricacies of modern life. Gretchen Anthony does Midwest-funny in a way that few can, and her latest novel is a unique story that reminds us that however complicated, human connection is what makes life worth living.” —Ann Garvin, bestselling author of I Like You Just Fine When You’re Not Around

From the Publisher

2020-03-02
Seventeen-year-old fraternal twins start a podcast searching for their biological father, and it goes viral.

Savannah McClair is a high schooler who has lots of opinions and no trouble standing up to her twin brother, Thomas, but she lets her best friend, Trigg, boss her around and tell her what to do. Thomas is in a similar situation with his twin sister and his best friend, Nico, who tears him down every chance he gets. The twins are being raised by their well-to-do grandmother, whom they call by her first name, Maggie, in Minneapolis. Their mother, Bess, found out she was pregnant just before her college graduation and moved home, where she and Maggie raised the kids until her untimely death when the twins were almost 13. When Savannah and Thomas decide they want to broadcast their search for their father via podcast, they team up with a high-octane producer with a laser focus on getting the show as much attention as possible. This is a slow-moving story told sequentially and from the points of view of Maggie, Thomas, Savannah, and Jack, a man living in Georgia who could be the children’s father. The story unfolds in a variety of formats, utilizing third-person narrative, letters, texts, social media posts, and voicemail and podcast transcripts. Author Anthony is particularly adept at sharing the conflicting emotions of adolescence and the fear of not being good enough that can extend into adulthood, but there is little tension in the story to pull the reader along. Instead, significant attention is given to frequent fights between the twins as they struggle with who they are, who their mom was, and where they should draw the line between public and private.

A dialogue-rich book that explores the emotional turmoil of adolescence.

Kirkus Reviews