Write Naked

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About Write Naked

From School Library Journal Grade 9 Up—Refreshingly lacking teen angst, Victor is a pensive, authentically innocent 16-year-old who seeks the isolated privacy of his family's Vermont cabin. He lugs an old Royal typewriter along with him and begins to write—in the buff—testing the idea that "you have to be naked to write." And it works; his words flow fast and smooth, until he spots a girl watching him, free-spirit Rose Anna. The teens meet at the cabin to write together, clothed and carefully respectful of one another, although Victor knows that Rose Anna also comes alone to "write naked." He is intrigued by her passion for nature and Wicca. Gould weaves a spell of nearly chaste sensuality, far more provocative than graphic sexuality, particularly in the emotionally charged yet controlled conclusion. Victor and Rose Anna are complex characters, coming to terms with the familial and personal forces shaping them into maturity. Despite minimal plot, the story holds readers' attention through their powerful character development and simmering romantic tension. Other aspects of the novel are less successful. The Vietnam vet who sells the teen the typewriter is overbearing as he holds forth on the immorality of war. Victor unflinchingly records his own flights of imagination, fleeting attention span, and faltering perceptions. In clumsy contrast, Rose Anna's story is a juvenile ecological fable of three newts traveling to a "summit meeting" on global warming. The didactic, condescending tone of her tale brings the exquisitely subtle intensity of the book to a screeching halt.—Joyce Adams Burner, Hillcrest Library, Prairie Village, KS Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Product Description Sixteen-year-old Victor, a thoughtful loner who tries to live his life “under the radar,” wants to test out the saying “You have to be naked to write.” When he sneaks off with an old Royal typewriter to his uncle’s cabin deep in the Vermont woods and strips off his clothes, he expects Thoreau-like solitude. What he gets is something else—both funny and, as his high school English teacher likes to say, “transformative.” For he discovers a face in the window watching him—Rose Anna, a homeschooled free spirit with an antique fountain pen and a passion to save the planet. Their unexpected encounter marks the beginning of an inspired writing partnership—and a relationship as timeless and eager as the Vermont woods in spring. A strikingly original debut novel that introduces two storytellers with different kinds of tales: one—in Victor’s unforgettable voice—a quirky, contemporary love story; the other—by Rose Anna—an ecological fantasy featuring a tiny heroic newt. Together, the teens explore the possibility of connections – to one another, the woods outside, and the world beyond. Review “Refreshingly lacking teen angst. Gould weaves a spell . . . particularly in the emotionally charged yet controlled conclusion.” —School Library Journal“The engaging youthful narration is authentic yet rich with sensual detail and figurative language . . . . Young adult readers will not want to put down this exceptional debut.” — VOYA“Gould offers a sophisticated novel featuring two cerebral teens.” —Booklist“There is an authenticity . . . and burgeoning wisdom that celebrates youth in a way that is utterly plausible, subtly breathtaking and a privilege to behold.”—Rutland Herald“WRITE NAKED is the story of a boy and a girl; a cabin and a dog; a typewriter and an old fountain pen; intertwined stories, a shared journey, and the future of our planet. Peter Gould -- like his endearing protagonist -- is now someone whom I'm dying to know.” —Richie’s Picks“Peter Gould’s WRITE NAKED takes the reader on a sensual journey into the heart, mind, and soul of sixteen year old Victor. Gould¹s protagonist is painfully honest, disarmingly innocent, seductively endearing, and astoundingly patient. We are p