By the Book
By the Book by Amanda Sellet, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2020, is a young adult fiction novel that explores the challenges of navigating high school through the lens of classic literature. The story follows Mary Porter-Malcolm, a teen who relies on her extensive knowledge of nineteenth-century literature to guide her through friendships and romantic entanglements. As she attempts to help her friends avoid the pitfalls of love using insights from literary heroines, she finds herself entangled in her own romantic misadventures.
Readers will find a narrative that blends elements of coming-of-age and romantic comedy, as Mary creates a “Scoundrel Survival Guide” to identify red flags in potential suitors. However, her plans unravel when she unexpectedly falls for the very boy she cautioned her friends against. This edition, comprising 384 pages, delves into themes of family, social dynamics, and the complexities of young love, illustrating how real life often diverges from the stories we cherish.
Official synopsis Publisher
In this clever YA rom-com debut perfect for fans of Kasie West and Ashley Poston, a teen obsessed with nineteenth-century literature tries to cull advice on life and love from her favorite classic heroines to disastrous results–especially when she falls for the school’s resident Lothario.
Mary Porter-Malcolm has prepared for high school in the one way she knows how: an extensive review of classic literature to help navigate the friendships, romantic liaisons, and overall drama she has come to expect from such an “esteemed” institution.
When some new friends seem in danger of falling for the same tricks employed since the days of Austen and Tolstoy, Mary swoops in to create the Scoundrel Survival Guide, using archetypes of literature’s debonair bad boys to signal red flags. But despite her best efforts, she soon finds herself unable to listen to her own good advice and falling for a supposed cad–the same one she warned her friends away from.
Without a convenient rain-swept moor to flee to, Mary is forced to admit that real life doesn’t follow the same rules as fiction and that if she wants a happy ending, she’s going to have to write it herself.
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