“Happy Book Birthday To…” is a feature I created in April 2015 to showcase books that have just been released. The purpose of the posts is to celebrate book releases and share my excitement for them. These posts won’t be made on a regular schedule (like once a week, once a month, etc). Instead, they will be made whenever a lot of books on my TBR are being released on one day and/or when a highly anticipated book from my TBR is released. To find the links to my previous Book Birthday posts, go here.
You’re Welcome, Universe
Author: Whitney Gardner
Series: N/A
Publisher: Knopf
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Pages: 304
Synopsis: 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.
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Happy Book Birthday to Whitney Gardner and her debut novel! Is this book on your TBR? Let me know down in the comments!
