Crazy Messy Beautiful
by Carrie Arcos
Publication Date: February 7, 2017
Publisher: Philomel Books
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOK DEPOSITORY
About the Book:
From National Book Award finalist Carrie Arcos–a fresh take on happily ever after, and friendship, that is anything but a love story.
When your namesake is Pablo Neruda—the greatest love poet of all time—finding “the one” should be easy. After all, sixteen-year-old aspiring artist Neruda Diaz has been in love many times before. So it’s only a matter of time before someone loves him back.
Callie could be that someone. She’s creative and edgy, and nothing like the girls Neruda typically falls for, so when a school assignment brings them together, he is pleasantly surprised to learn they have a lot in common. With his true love in reach and his artistic ambitions on track, everything is finally coming together.
But as Neruda begins to fall faster and harder than ever before, he is blindsided by the complicated nature of love—and art—in more ways than one. And when the relationships he’s looked to for guidance threaten to implode, Neruda must confront the reality that love is crazier, messier, and more beautiful than he ever realized—and riskier, too, than simply saying the words.
Excerpt:
But even though I have been “Neruda, like the poet” for sixteen years, I am nothing like him. When Pablo Neruda was my age, he walked around in a large black floppy hat and black cape, seducing girls like a young Don Juan. Supposedly girls fell in and out of love with him as frequently and as easily as rain falls from the sky. Because Pablo Neruda was not just one of the greatest love poets.
He was The Greatest Love Poet of all time.
I, on the other hand, am the unluckiest in love. It’s not for trying. So far I’m about zero for seven, the names of the girls written on my heart like the scars I still recall on Ella’s knee—Marisol, Stephanie, Jessie, Angela, Trinity and Elise.
About the author:
Carrie Arcos is a National Book Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature for OUT OF REACH; her second novel is THERE WILL COME A TIME. CRAZY MESSY BEAUTIFUL will be available soon. She lives in Los Angeles with her family. For more information, check out her website: carriearcos.com
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