A Heavy Dose of Allison Tandy
A Heavy Dose of Allison Tandy
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Perma-Bound from Publisher's Hardcover ©2022--
Publisher's Hardcover ©2022--
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G.P. Putnam Pub. Adult
Annotation: After taking painkillers for a basketball injury, eighteen-year-old Cam starts seeing visions of his comatose ex-girlfriend Ally, leaving him to wonder what her spectral visits really mean.
 
Reviews: 3
Catalog Number: #382573
Format: Perma-Bound from Publisher's Hardcover
Copyright Date: 2022
Edition Date: 2022 Release Date: 07/12/22
Pages: 357 pages
ISBN: Publisher: 1-9848129-4-7 Perma-Bound: 0-8000-5731-7
ISBN 13: Publisher: 978-1-9848129-4-0 Perma-Bound: 978-0-8000-5731-2
Dewey: Fic
LCCN: 2021059903
Dimensions: 21 cm
Language: English
Reviews:
ALA Booklist (Fri Sep 16 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Cameron's last summer of freedom is coming up, and he plans to make the best of it before heading off to college. However, his plans are derailed as his girlfriend, Ally, breaks up with him; he tears his ACL during basketball practice; and he must have painful surgery that limits his physical activity. To top it off, Ally has a bad car accident that renders her comatose. Preparing for the worst summer yet, Cam plans on lying around all summer, recovering from surgery. When he begins taking his pain medication, he also begins to see Ally everywhere d she's not a hallucination. He can communicate with Ally, even though she's in a coma in the hospital, and Cam must figure out why she is coming to him. Is it to analyze their relationship and why they broke up, or is it to help Cam move on from Ally after their breakup? Bishop's debut is full of wit and emotion, sarcasm, and teenage antics. Endearing and touching.

Kirkus Reviews

High school senior Cameron keeps telling himself that he is over Allison Tandy, the ex-girlfriend who broke his heart, but after being prescribed fictional painkiller Delatrix for a basketball injury, he is not so sure.After taking the drug, Cam is astounded to find himself conversing with Ally in his bathroom. This should be impossible because she was in a car crash months before and is hospitalized, lying in a coma. While Cam is at first disbelieving, suspecting this is a side effect of the drug, Ally slaps him and he passes out, coming to with a tender cheek, making the encounter feel real. With just two weeks until high school graduation, Cam has to cope not only with the confusion caused by Ally's ongoing spectral visits, but with pressure from Chevy and Lisa, his best friends, to date again. The pair, dubbed The Happy Couple by Cam, even create a dossier of options for him to consider. Is he ready? What do his visits from Ally mean? Cam's wry first-person narration and witty banter with Ally perfectly match the lighthearted mood of the book. Giving the novel some weight is its thoughtful exploration of the fate of high school relationships after graduation as couples negotiate their commitments. The affluent Illinois suburb setting allows for some exploration of characters' awareness of relative socio-economic diversity. Cam and Ally are White; Chevy is Black, and Lisa is Jewish.A fun, fast-paced coming-of-age story with an unusual twist. (Fiction. 14-18)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Illinois high school grad Cameron Garrity is experiencing a wobbly entrance into adulthood as he contends with a brutal sports injury and a broken heart in Bishop’s sharp debut. Still reeling from his breakup with endlessly charming Allison Tandy the year prior, Cam is gutted after a devastating car wreck puts Allison into a coma. When Cam is administered a new medication to alleviate pain from his torn ACL, the dosage gives him the ability to experience “involuntary metaphysical phantasmal visitations,” which present themselves as Ally visiting him at all hours of the day and night. Along with some mutual friends, Ally attempts to help Cam get over their breakup once and for all by enacting the Cam Rebound Project, intent on setting him up with a new girlfriend. But as the pair recount the rise and fall of their relationship, and Ally remains comatose, it becomes increasingly unclear whether either will ever be able to move on. Though comedic one-liners occasionally deflate emotional beats, Bishop employs snappy prose and witty banter to deliver a smart tale about a teen learning how to get out of his own way. Cam and Ally cue as white. Ages 14–up. Agent: Christopher Schelling, Selectric Artists. (July)

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ALA Booklist (Fri Sep 16 00:00:00 CDT 2022)
Kirkus Reviews
Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)
Reading Level: 6.0
Interest Level: 9-12
Lexile: HL560L

1

If I were to ask you "Where is the worst place to run into an ex?" you might say "the supermarket" or "on a date with somebody else" or maybe even "at a family reunion." To which I would reply, (1) "wrong," (2) "wrong," and (3) "for the love of God, man, stop hooking up with your cousin."

There is a right answer, by the way.

I can tell you---with absolute certainty---the worst place to run into an ex is inside your own home, while you are splayed across the bathroom floor, neck--deep in porcelain, your stomach hollowed out like the inside of a snare drum.

Should I elaborate?

Say you're me. (Hi, I'm Cam.) You're a senior in high school, just two weeks from graduating. Best time of your life, or so you've been told. Results may vary.

Say you're head over heels in love with a girl--let's call her, oh, I don't know, Ally. You and this Ally had been dating for over a year. Everything with you guys was good--no, better than good. Phenomenal. Stupendous. Second to none.

Say that very same girl blindsided you, ending things abruptly and without explanation. Shredding your heart in the process. Real hatchet job. I've been thinking about this for a while . . . It's not you, it's me . . . I still want us to be friends. She played all the hits.

That was in January. Now it's late May. The two of you haven't spoken since. Not even a text.

Say a couple months after the split, you found out she was seeing someone else. But not just any someone else. The very some-one else who you'd always known had a thing for her. Who she swore to you was "just a friend."

Here's where it gets fun.

Say that ex (you know, the one with the hatchet) was driving home from school one afternoon in late March when suddenly---inexplicably---she lost track of the road. Wrapped the hood of her car around an oak tree at the bottom of the Shermer Ravines. The skid marks are still there, branded on the pavement. So is the puncture her sedan left in the guardrail.

Say she's been in a coma ever since, confined to a hospital bed just a few miles up the road. Unable to walk, talk, or breathe without the assistance of a ventilator. Unable to---hypothetically---materialize out of thin air. Inside your bathroom. At three in the morning.

So I'll ask again: Where is the worst place to run into an ex?

The answer? Anywhere.



Excerpted from A Heavy Dose of Allison Tandy by Jeff Bishop
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

“Speculative John Green vibes live in these pages!” —BuzzFeed

You’ve Reached Sam meets John Hughes in a funny and heartfelt debut about a boy’s delirious summertime quest with his ex-girlfriend.


The summer after senior year should have been a time for Cam to party and hang out with his friends. It should also have been a time for him to win back the love of his life, Allison Tandy, who'd dumped him so brutally the year before.

But it quickly becomes clear that this summer is going to be worse than a failure for Cam. It's going to be a tragedy.

Ally is left comatose after a terrible car crash, then Cam tears his ACL in a basketball accident. The operation leaves him in agony, confined to his couch and ruminating over the fact that his ex may not survive.

But when (after taking his medication) Cam starts seeing Ally, he starts to think: 1. He may be headed for a complete mental breakdown and 2. This summer might just be interesting afterall.

Brimming with honesty and humor, A Heavy Dose of Allison Tandy interrogates how much control we really have over matters of love—and life.


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