McKinley Mary

"There s school, and then there s the real world. If you re lucky enough to survive the first, you owe it to yourself to explore the second " So let s roll With graduation a month away, I m hitting the road with my best friends Beau, Leonie, and Leonie s awesome rescue dog, The Bomb. We ve all got something on our minds. Beau is schooling our school for ignoring brutal bullying. Beautiful, crazy Leonie is striving to become a model. And I m drilling to join a local roller derby team The Rat City Roller Girls where my bulk is actually a benefit! But first, somewhere between finals and graduation, I need some answers. I need to see my dad. Face to face. Unless he s moved without telling me, my dad is out in the wilds of Alaska somewhere remote, beautiful, and amazing, where there will be wild animals, and hot guys, and adventures and lies and heartbreaks. It s further from home than any of us have ever been. Sometimes that s how far you need to go to figure out exactly where you want to be "

When Beau transferred to our school I thought: "Good; fresh meat." Because I knew he would be tormented the entire time he was at Baboon High. Like I am. All day...every day. Growing up is a trip...In high school, there are few worse crimes than being smart or fat. Lucky me, I'm both. But when Beau Gales blows in to town, it takes about two minutes for the jackasses at our Seattle school to figure out he's gay, and that makes him an even bigger target. Have you ever heard the saying: 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'? There's something to that. When the bullying gets violent and Beau decides to run away to San Francisco to ask his Uncle Frankie for advice, we all go. Beau, me, Leonie (designated class slut), and a scruffy rescue dog called The Bomb - a tribe of misfits crammed into my mum's minivan. Throw in a detour to the Twilight town of Forks, armed robbery, cool record shops, confessions, breakups and makeups, and you have the kind of journey that can change the way you look at the whole world - and yourself.