
Pages: 256
Published by Dial Books on May 10, 2016
Genres: Young Adult, Realistic fiction, Social Issues
Sixteen-year-old Solomon is agoraphobic. He hasn’t left the house in three years, which is fine by him.
Ambitious Lisa desperately wants to get into the second-best psychology program for college (she’s being realistic). But how can she prove she deserves a spot there?
Solomon is the answer.
Determined to “fix” Sol, Lisa thrusts herself into his life, introducing him to her charming boyfriend Clark and confiding her fears in him. Soon, all three teens are far closer than they thought they’d be, and when their facades fall down, their friendships threaten to collapse, as well.





Today I have John Corey Whaley, the author of Highly Illogical Behavior at Book Briefs to share 25 facts about him that you didn’t know. Welcome Corey!
25 Random Things About John Corey Whaley:
- I’m a professional-grade whistler. I’m not kidding. I can whistle most anything you name and I can usually do it from hearing a song just once.
- I hate lettuce. Hate it. It tastes like poison to me. And this is very funny and confusing to most people.
- Adults in costumes (a la Halloween or at theme parks, etc.) really bother me. I don’t trust them. What are they hiding?
- I have a love/hate relationship with politics, but still may go into them someday if the mood strikes.
- I minored in French in college, and I used to be partially fluent, but now I can barely understand a word unless it’s written down for me.
- I’m allergic to Penicillin. The miracle drug. Of course. (Turns out, antibiotics are most likely not that great for us, so joke’s on you, world).
- I can go from my normal voice to my Louisiana accent at the drop of a hat and teeter-totter back and forth.
- Don’t give me a houseplant. I’ll kill it. I am a plant murderer.
- Author and filmmaker Holly Goldberg Sloan (Counting By 7s) is like a second mother to me. In fact, I call her my LA Mom and she calls me her Louisiana son.
- I am very afraid of the ocean after a near-drowning incident a couple years back when my boyfriend and I got caught in a riptide. I’m not sure if I’ll ever swim in the ocean again, honestly. Argh, the sea, she’s a monster.
- I once had a curse/hex put on me by a strange woman outside of a Wal-Mart. I don’t think it worked, though maybe she cursed me to nearly drown? (see above)
- I play strategy board games when I’m feeling stressed or anxious or even when I’m stuck on a writing project. It’s always good to use my brain for non-writing related things too.
- I’ve watched the series ‘LOST’ two times all the way through and I may go for a third someday. Maybe every episode isn’t perfect, but the overall plot and character development are just so impressive.
- I don’t have any kids, but I have a twelve-year-old niece back in Louisiana who I miss very much. She’s super smart and witty…she takes a lot after her uncle. Haha.
- I’m much more comfortable speaking in front of a large crowd of strangers than I am a small group of people I know.
- I still look at my fingers when I type, at least most of the time. Don’t judge. I learned to type on electric typewriters in a Louisiana public school.
- No matter how many times you tell me I don’t have to, I will ALWAYS put two spaces after a period. And use Oxford commas. Even on Twitter if possible.
- I will travel an ungodly distance for the right kind of food—I once walked around/got lost for 3 hours in the Montreal suburbs to find the perfect bagel. It was okay.
- I am a terribly slow reader, which is very frustrating in this line of work.
- I once met Joss Whedon in a Starbucks and he was so nice to me that I was then worried it wasn’t actually him and so maybe I’ll never know. (It was him. It HAD to be him!)
- I never went on a date until I was out of college. Fact. And even then, I dated the wrong gender for a few years. Womp womp.
- In college, I worked for the Louisiana Regional Folklife Program, where, mostly, my job was to catalogue quilts—yes quilts—into a statewide database. I know a lot about quilts. Or I did anyway.
- I have two tattoos—one on each forearm. On the right, there’s an ivory-billed woodpecker from the hardcover of my first book, Where Things Come Back. On the left, “So it goes,” a Vonnegut quote from Slaughterhouse-Five. (a subtle wink to NOGGIN, which was my homage to Vonnegut in many ways). I’m still deciding what tattoo to get for Highly Illogical Behavior.
- My least favorite kind of person is the type who thinks being loud makes them funny. They are incorrect 99.99% of the time.
- This is one of my greatest shames as an author in children’s books: I’ve only read one of the Harry Potter..I’m sorry everyone. I loved it and saw all the movies though!
Olivia Roach
I have been hearing a lot of things about this book so I wanted to come and know some more about the author. He shouldn’t feel ashamed of having read only the first Harry Potter book. I’ve only read the first three and get this – I didn’t even like any of them!