My Beautiful Failure - Hardcover

Young, Janet Ruth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416954899 ISBN 13: 9781416954897

Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2012

Synopsis

A haunting account of a teen boy who volunteers at a suicide hotline and falls for a troubled caller.

Billy is a sophomore in high school, and twice a week, he volunteers at Listeners, a suicide hotline.
     Jenney is an “incoming,” a caller, a girl on the brink.
     As her life spirals out of control, Jenney’s calls become more desperate, more frequent. Billy, struggling with the deteriorating relationship with his depressed father, is the only one who understands. Through her pain, he sees hope. Through her tears, he feels her heart. And through her despair, he finds love. But is that enough?
     Acclaimed author Janet Ruth Young has written a stunning and powerful story with no easy answers; it is about pain and heartbreak, reality and illusion, and finding redemption and the strength to forgive in the darkest of times.

About this title

About the Author

Janet Ruth Young is the author of the teen novels My Beautiful Failure, Things I Shouldn’t Think (previously published as The Babysitter Murders), and The Opposite of Music. She lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Visit her at JanetRuthYoung.com.

Reviews

“FEELING DESPERATE? CALL US NOW.” When sophomore Billy Morrison reads the sign for the Listener’s suicide hotline, he is brought back to the previous winter, when his father suffered through a deep depression, and Billy supported him through long hours. Thinking that he has the listening skills needed for the volunteer hotline, Billy signs up, and one regular caller, Jenney, calls Billy “Hallmark” for the warm feelings he brings. Soon Billy begins obsessing over Jenney, even as he worries that his father’s antidepressants have triggered a manic episode that is manifesting in all-night painting sessions. While Billy is confident that his judgment concerning both Jenney and his father is sound, the reader is clued into Billy’s self-serving, immature diagnosis. The insider view of a suicide hotline is a poignant one. Like the realistic novels of Todd Strasser, this compelling title places a young person in a moral quandary that could literally mean the difference between life and death. Grades 8-11. --Diane Colson

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1.

she was

She was a girl talking to me in the dark.

Everybody knows what happened with my parents. Everybody I talk to when I call.

“You can turn your life around,” I had told her. “Starting today, you can be free. You can do anything you want. Don’t you see that?”

I’m down, but I’m not out. I’m a fighter. On my good days, few can defeat me.

“I admire that about you,” I had told her.

I remember every compliment you ever gave me. Especially when you said I was strong.

“I have to go. Will you be okay?”

I’ll handle it. I always do. Good night, sweet Hallmark prince.

Edition details

• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1416954899
• ISBN 13: 9781416954897
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320