A fiercely intelligent, introspective, and laugh-out-loud funny young adult novel of self-discovery narrated by a quirky teenage girl who uses snarky humor, hyperbole and wild flights of fancy as she tries to make sense of her life with a single mom working two soul-crushing jobs, dysfunctional high school teachers, and her own unruly emotions with a mind of their own.
Life isn't easy for Gwen Pendergrass as a free-lunch student living with her mom in a one bedroom apartment with a tiny, Marquis de Sade-inspired kitchen that seems intent on inflicting grave bodily harm. The only thing making life palatable is her best friend Peter, a loner like herself who also lives in the building, with whom she's bonded over a shared love of books, banter, and endless reflection on the absurdities of the universe.
Everything changes when Gwen's mom gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity-one that would get her life back on the track she'd been on prior to Gwen's unplanned birth. Gwen is ecstatic... up until her mom says she has to refuse the offer, because they simply can't afford to take advantage of it.
Gwen cannot,
will not, allow this to happen. She intercepts the refusal letter her mom was mailing, then ropes Peter into a Hail Mary of a scheme to find her father, undeterred by the fact that she's never met the man and literally knows nothing about him, not even his name. All she has do go on is a strip of sixteen year old photo booth pictures of him and her mom from somewhere in Las Vegas, snapped on the "Weekend Gwen Was Made" (ew...!)
And while she receives surprising help from unexpected allies, before she knows it, her white lies, scheming, and emotional roller coaster start to make a mess of everything, and it quickly becomes a race to find her dad before her mom catches on, her head explodes, or it all spirals completely out of control.
