Thanks for the Trouble
Author: Tommy Wallach
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Pages: 276 pages
'Was this story written about me?'
I shrugged.
'Yes or no?'
I shrugged again, finally earning a little scowl, which somehow made the girl even more pretty.
'It's very rude not to answer simple questions,' she said.
I took out my pen and wrote on my palm.
I can't, I wrote. Then, in tiny letters below it:
Now don't you feel like a jerk?
Parker Sante hasn't spoken a word in five years. While his classmates plan bright futures, he skips school to hang out in hotels, killing time by watching (and sometimes stealing from) the guest. But when he meets a silver-haired girl named Zelda Toth, who claims to be quite a bit older than she looks, he'll discover there just might be a few things left worth living for.
My Review
Thoughts on the book: Thanks for the Trouble tells the story of Parker Sante and the weekend that changed his life for the better. Parker was a recluse who didn't like school, refused to talk after a car accident, which killed his father, and had basically given up on life. The only thing he really loved doing was people watching, especially at the hotels where he could easily steal things, and writing in his notebooks. One seemingly normal day he sets up at one of his usual posts in the Palace Hotel lobby to people watch and he spots a young girl around his age with silver hair and a purse with a large roll of cash in it. Suddenly Parker has the makings of a new story in his head and starts writing about it immediately. Upon finishing it he looks up and the young girl is gone but her purse isn't, so being the thief that he is he steals it and walks away. But soon he returns and finds that he has left his journal there and the young girl has read it. And this is the start of a beautiful but short lived friendship.
Friday October 31st is basically the start of the rest of Parker's life. He meets Zelda Toth and she opens his eyes up to all that he has been missing since closing himself off to the world after his fathers death. The author weaves an exceptional story that will have many people questioning where they are going in life and how to make the most out of the opportunities that are available to them even if they may seem way out of their reach. It's also a fantastic book that makes you realise that you need to look beyond the surface with the people you meet as there is so much more to everyone on the inside and all it takes is time to just sit down and have a casual chat with them. It's not what is on the outside that counts but what is on the inside that means the most.
Thanks for the Trouble is a fantastic second novel by Tommy Wallach and I can't wait to read more by him.
Favourite quote/moment:
“In my opinion, the best time to be alive is always right now. People are aways whining about how they were born in the wrong century, but they really haven't thought things through. They picture the old castle they wish they could live in, but they don't think about the drafts in the winter or the pitch darkness at night, or all the spiders and the lice. They can't imagine the everyday pain of a life without movies or recorded music or... or... Interet videos about cats. And don't even get me started on women who idealize the past. Do you have any idea what it was like to be a woman even a hundred years ago? Horrible! And a hundred years before that, the situation practically defies description. We might as well have been slaves. Trussed up in hoop skirts and corsets, married off like racehorses. Good riddance to history, I say!”
Rating: 4/5
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