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by David Arnold
A stunning surrealist portrait, The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik is a story about all the ways we hurt our friends without knowing it, and all the ways they stick around to save us.
This is Noah Oakman - sixteen, Bowie believer, concise historian, disillusioned swimmer, son, brother, friend.
Then Noah gets hypnotized.
Now Noah sees changes: his mother has a scar on her face that wasn't there before; his old dog, who once walked with a limp, is suddenly lithe; his best friend, a lifelong DC Comics disciple, now rotates in the Marvel universe. Subtle behaviors, bits of history, plans for the future - everything in Noah's world has been rewritten. Everything except his Strange Fascinations ...
"Starred Review. Arnold has written an in-your-face validation of the power of real and honest friendship, guaranteed to mesmerize readers and leave them altered." - Booklist
"Starred Review. This is a comedic coming-of-age tale with plenty of pop culture and literary references and the snarky, casual, and observational feel of a mumblecore comedy ... A weird, compelling teen-angst trip that will appeal to fans of John Corey Whaley." - School Library Journal
"Noah's own writing...and his internal exploration propel the narrative forward, allowing Arnold to explore the stagnancy of a predetermined path and unanswered questions about reality, interpretation, and imagination." - Publishers Weekly
"[Arnold's] major plot points often feel convenient rather than revelatory, though the book as a whole hangs together well as a what-if, second-chance, awaking-from-a-dream narrative. A compelling exploration of a life within a life. " - Kirkus
"You'll marvel at every glowing page as powerhouse Arnold tells a blazing, transporting story of love and history and mystery and more." - Adam Silvera, New York Times bestselling author of More Happy Than Not and They Both Die at the End
"A breathtaking, mind-bending tour de force that probes fate and forgiveness, history of the human connection, and what it means to live. Ambitious, wise, hilarious, and yearning, The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik is David Arnold at his exuberant best." - Kelly Loy Gilbert, author of Picture Us in the Light and Morris Award finalist Conviction
This information about The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
David Arnold is the New York Times bestselling author of Mosquitoland, I Loved You in Another Life, The Electric Kingdom, Kids of Appetite, and The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik. He has won the Southern Book Prize and the Great Lakes Book Award, and was named a Publishers Weekly Flying Start for his debut. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife and son.
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