by Libba Bray
First published 2009
Cameron just wants to coast through his junior year without breaking a sweat. Then doctors tell the sixteen year old he has a fatal disease. As he lies in his hospital bed, a pink haired angel named Dulcie appears. She might be real or she might be a hallucination brought on by his deteriorating brain. Dulcie insists a cure exists if Cameron will leave his bed and search for it across America. Cameron teams up with Gonzo, a dwarf obsessed with Norse mythology and video games, plus a garden gnome that may or may not talk back. The unlikely trio embarks on a cross country journey through a reality that keeps shifting between the mundane and the magical. Cameron encounters everything from a happiness cult to a jazz playing yard ornament as he races against time and his own mortality. The road trip becomes a quest to discover what really matters when death is chasing close behind.
Genres: fiction, adventure, contemporary, young-adult
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking, whimsical
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
372 pages · Kindle Edition · Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Content warnings: terminal-illness