Rumble

by Ellen Hopkins

Genres: YA LGBT & Pride

Synopsis

Can an atheist be saved? The New York Times bestselling author of Crank and Tricks explores the highly charged landscapes of faith and forgiveness with brilliant sensitivity and emotional resonance.

There is no God, no benevolent ruler of the earth, no omnipotent grand poobah of countless universes. Because if there was...my little brother would still be fishing or playing basketball instead of fertilizing cemetery vegetation.

Matthew Turner doesn't have faith in anything.

Not in family-his is a shambles after his younger brother was bullied into suicide. Not in so-called friends who turn their backs when things get tough. Not in some all-powerful creator who lets too much bad stuff happen. And certainly not in some "It Gets Better" psychobabble.

No matter what his girlfriend Hayden says about faith and forgiveness, there's no way Matt's letting go of blame. He's decided to "live large and go out with a huge bang," and whatever happens happens. But when a horrific event plunges Matt into a dark, silent place, he hears a rumble…a rumble that wakes him up, calling everything he's ever disbelieved into question.

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Print pages: 560

Sample

Rumble

In the Narrow Pewter Space

Between the gray of consciousness

and the obsidian where dreams

ebb and flow, there is a wishbone

window. And trapped in its glass,

a single silver shard of enlightenment.

It is this mystics search for. The truth

of the Holy Grail. It is this believers

pray for. The spark, alpha and omega.

It is this the gilded claim to hold

in the cups of their hands. But what

of those who plunge into slumber,

who snap from sleep’s embrace?

What of those who measure their

tomorrows with finite numbers, cross

them off their calendars one by

one? Some say death is a doorway,

belief the key. Others claim you only

have to stumble across the threshold

to glimpse a hundred billion universes

in the blink of single silver shard.