Release Date: March 7, 2017Published by: Knopf
Read from: March 11-16 , 2017Stand-aloneSource: Netgalley (I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)For fans of: Marginalized Voices, Disability, Contemporary, YA
A vibrant, edgy, fresh new YA voice for fans of More Happy Than Not and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, packed with interior graffiti.
When Julia finds a slur about her best friend scrawled across the back of the Kingston School for the Deaf, she covers it up with a beautiful (albeit illegal) graffiti mural.
Her supposed best friend snitches, the principal expels her, and her two mothers set Julia up with a one-way ticket to a “mainstream” school in the suburbs, where she’s treated like an outcast as the only deaf student. The last thing she has left is her art, and not even Banksy himself could convince her to give that up.
Out in the ’burbs, Julia paints anywhere she can, eager to claim some turf of her own. But Julia soon learns that she might not be the only vandal in town. Someone is adding to her tags, making them better, showing off—and showing Julia up in the process. She expected her art might get painted over by cops. But she never imagined getting dragged into a full-blown graffiti war.
Told with wit and grit by debut author Whitney Gardner, who also provides gorgeous interior illustrations of Julia’s graffiti tags, You’re Welcome, Universe introduces audiences to a one-of-a-kind protagonist who is unabashedly herself no matter what life throws in her way.
"It always baffles me when people thin I'm just typing things out to be different."18%
"Words are only words."25%
"The words don't make you. YOU make you."25%
"What we make is bigger than the both of us."70%
"Silence is the loudest sound."86%
Labels: Contemporary, Disability, Diversity, GLBT, Womance, YA