Slingshot, Mercedes Helnwein
Slingshot, Mercedes Helnwein
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

Slingshot
A Novel

Author: Mercedes Helnwein

Narrator: Jesse Vilinsky

Unabridged: 11 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/27/2021


Synopsis

"Narrator Jesse Vilinsky masterfully connects listeners to the awkward nervous energy of teens...Vilinsky shines with breathless trepidation as Gracie grows from heartbreak, jealousy, and self-realization. At times, it's hard to listen to the raw emotions Vilinsky voices--which also make this audiobook hard to put down." -- AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner

Mercedes Helnwein's Slingshot is an exciting debut contemporary young adult novel perfect for fans of Rainbow Rowell and Mary H. K. Choi

"I didn’t think it was going to be anything like this when I finally fell in love. I thought it was going to be pretty simple. Like, I’d love someone and they’d love me. I thought that’s the way it worked.”

Grace Welles is stuck at a third-tier boarding school in the swamps of Florida, where her method of survival is a strict, self-imposed loneliness. And it works. Her crap attitude keeps people away because without friends, there are fewer to lose.

But when she accidentally saves the new kid, Wade Scholfield, from being beaten up, everything about her precariously balanced loner world collapses and, in order to find her footing again, she has no choice but to discover a completely new way to exist.

Because with Wade around, school rules are optional, weird is okay, and conversations about wormholes can lead to make-out sessions that disrupt any logical stream of thought. Nothing’s perfect, but that’s not the point. When they're together everything seems uncomplicated in a way that Grace knows is not possible.

Except it is.

So why does Grace crush Wade’s heart into a million pieces?

Acidly funny and compulsive readable, this debut is a story about two people finding each other and then screwing it all up. See also: soulmate, stupidity, sex, friendship, bad poetry, very bad decisions and all the indignities of being in love for the first time.

A Macmillan Audio production from Wednesday Books

"Helnwein debuts in striking fashion... The writing, especially the dialogue, is magnetic, honest, and brimming with caustic wit... [an] enrapturing take on the intense highs and lows of teenage love." —Booklist (Starred Review)

"Wildly real and bursting with all the romance and pain of coming into oneself." —Kirkus (Starred Review)

About Mercedes Helnwein

Mercedes Helnwein is a visual artist and writer. She was born in Vienna, Austria, and grew up in Germany, Ireland, and partially the US and the UK. Instead of going to college she moved to L.A. where she began putting on art shows with her friends and selling her drawings. Her obsession with writing began at age ten when she wrote her first short story for a school assignment – The Celery Stick Who Became President. She currently lives and works in L.A. and Ireland. Slingshot is her debut novel.

About Jesse Vilinsky

Jesse Vilinsky is an award-winning narrator and accomplished voice actress. She has recorded over 350 audiobooks, and is known for her ability in bringing forth the strength, truth and vulnerability of her expertly voiced characters, as well as the depth and nuance of each narrative she tells. She is also known for her comedic timing, and quirky YA styling. She strives to make an author’s deftly created world 3D in the listener’s mind, and to aid them, and herself, in disappearing into their stories. She has been nominated for and won two Audie Awards, nominated for five and won two Voice Arts Awards, and has won 14 Earphones Awards.As a voice actress, she has been featured in many films and television shows, including The Giver, The New Mutants, Yellowstone and Rick & Morty, can also be heard in many major video game projects, such as Dead by Daylight: Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Duty 6: Black Ops and Alone in the Dark.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nilufer on August 31, 2021

What a beautiful, realistic, extremely poignant novel with John Green and Sally Rooney’s character vibes! Realistic fiction dances with coming of age! In this book: NOBODY IS PERFECT! Parents suck! Teachers are biased! Protagonists are flawed, making so many mistakes to break each others’ hearts. Angst......more

Goodreads review by Irena BookDustMagic on April 10, 2021

Actual rating: 3,5 I always had a weak spot for book covers, it is well known true, so when I saw the beautiful design for Slingshot, I knew I had to read this novel even before I read what it was about. I went into it expecting nothing, as more and more not-so-flattering reviews showed up. I still wa......more

Goodreads review by Kristy on March 31, 2021

An honest and emotional YA read Grace Welles is fifteen, trapped at a third-rate boarding school in Florida, and pretty much resigned to a lonely and miserable life. Her father has another (real) family in California, sneaking away to occasionally remember that Grace and her beautiful, flighty mother......more

Goodreads review by Carrie on April 14, 2023

Review coming soon.......more

Goodreads review by Carole on February 24, 2022

This review can also be found at [URL not allowed] This is going to be a hard one to review. There were things that I liked about this book and things that I didn’t care for at all. I am glad that I decided to go with the audiobook for this read because I think that narration was very we......more