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Schreiber, Joe.
AU REVOIR, CRAZY EUROPEAN CHICK
New York : Houghton Mifflin, 2011
IL YA
ISBN 0547577389

(2 booktalks)
Click on the book to read Amazon reviews
Booktalk #1

Perry is a typical high school senior.  He’s not super hot, but he’s cute.  Not a total geek, but definitely a smart guy.  Not a "bad boy," even though his rock band plays in city bars.  For the past year his family has been hosting a foreign exchange student.  Gobi is nothing like the hot Swedish model Perry was dreaming of.  Unfortunately, she’s a quiet, frumpy Lithuanian who keeps to herself.   But when Gobi gets it into her head that she wants to go to the prom, Perry’s mom insists that he take her.   Agghhh!  There are so many other things he’d rather do.  But there is no other way than mom's, so he is stuck. But wow!  Is Perry ever in for the shock of his life!  On prom night, Gobi transforms herself into a knockout hottie with a hit list … and I’m not talking Top 40!  She’s hell bent on taking down thugs, thieves and all-around bad guys.  Once this “Prom Night Gone Wrong” takes off, it’s an action-packed thriller that doesn’t stop.   It’s like a James Bond film.  There’s non-stop action -- with car chases, murder, mystery, and deceit.  Like a Bond film, there’s humor too.  You’ll laugh, you’ll be shocked, you won’t be able to put this book down.  It’s the perfect book for high-school seniors.  Each chapter begins with one of those dreaded college essay questions, like Describe a painful experience and what you learned from it.  The chapter that follows each question has something to do with that topic.  Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick covers a whole range of emotions -- humorous at times, but also dark at others.  (Note to book talker: It's definitely for older YAs.)  (Patty McClune, Conestoga Valley High School, Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Awards Program Booktalks 2012-2013)

Booktalk #2

Perry, My Journal: The first day of the rest of my life:

Well journal, it’s been a ride the last 24 hours.  My life has been threatened more times than I want to think about, I’ve been shot at, pretty much destroyed my Father’s sports car, and scared my parents nearly to death.  So, let me start at the beginning.

First off let me say it’s been interesting to say the least.  OK, the beginning.  I like video games and my band.  My band has some of my best friends ever.  We have this cool band and just got a gig in NYC for one night.  We were going to hit the big time, finally.  Then Mom had to step in.  She broke it to me that I was going to take our Lithuanian exchange student, Gobija, to the prom on the same night as our big gig.  I pleaded with her and she wouldn’t come off it – I had to take Gobija to the prom.  I couldn’t tell her about our gig in NYC because she would tell me no.  Not just no but NO!  I was stuck with our geeky exchange student who wore her geeky Lithuanian clothes.  To sweeten the deal Dad threw in his red Jag for the night.  His “never touch this car, Perry” car.

Let me just tell you it was a wild night after we left our house, left the prom, left Gobija’s clothes somewhere, got a gun, got to NYC, got cozy with some Russian gangsters and oh, man, I’ll write more tomorrow.  I gotta get some sleep.
(Booktalk by the Sequoya Youth Book Award committee, 2014)



SUBJECTS:     Assassins -- Fiction.
                        Family life -- Fiction.
                        Foreign study -- Fiction.
                        Lithuanians -- Fiction.
                        New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction.
                        Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction.
                        Coming of age -- Fiction.

 
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