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Also by Brent Hartinger:

Project Pay Day, March 2021
e-Book
Three Truths and a Lie, August 2016
e-Book
Barefoot in the City of Broken Dreams, August 2015
e-Book
The Thing I Didn't Know I Didn't Know, December 2014
e-Book
The Elephant Of Surprise, February 2013
e-Book
Geography Club, March 2004
Paperback / e-Book

The Elephant Of Surprise
Brent Hartinger

Russel Middlebrook #4
Buddha Kitty Books
February 2013
On Sale: February 7, 2013
Featuring: Russel Middlebrook
226 pages
ISBN: 0984679464
EAN: 9780984679454
Kindle: B00BG3EG1O
e-Book
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Young Adult

People aren't always what they seem to be. Sometimes we even surprise ourselves. So discovers seventeen-year-old Russel Middlebrook in The Elephant of Surprise, a stand-alone sequel to Brent Hartinger's landmark 2003 gay young adult novel Geography Club (which has now been adapted as a feature film co-starring Scott Bakula and Nikki Blonsky). In this latest book, Russel and his friends Min and Gunnar are laughing about something they call the Elephant of Surprise – the tendency for life to never turn out as expected. Sure enough, Russel soon happens upon a hot but mysterious homeless activist named Wade, even as he's drawn back to an old flame named Kevin. Meanwhile, Min is learning surprising things about her girlfriend Leah, and Gunnar just wants to be left alone to pursue his latest technology obsession. But the elephant is definitely on the move in all three of their lives. Just who is Wade and what are he and his friends planning? What is Leah hiding? And why is Gunnar taking naked pictures of Kevin in the shower? The Elephant of Surprise includes Hartinger's trademark combination of humor and romance, angst and optimism. Before the story is over, Russel and his friends will learn that the Elephant of Surprise really does appear when you least expect him—and that when he stomps on you, it really, really hurts.

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Comments

5 comments posted.

Re: The Elephant Of Surprise

That's an interesting plot. It's original for sure! Congrats!
(May Pau 8:49am June 10, 2013)

Hey, I loved The Elephant of Surprise! This made my day and I intend to go back and read all the earlier books. I thought the cover shot looks too old for the book however - early twenties, say, and it looks like he's in a bar. But I live in Ireland, maybe that is what teens look like in America. Although there was no bar in the book.
(Clare O'Beara 8:53am June 10, 2013)

(Janis Milford 3:57pm June 10, 2013)

Keep up the original thinking! Movies that do not conform also do not do well here in North America whereas the lowest form of comedy is a block buster. I will have to keep an eye out for the Geography Club when it opens in Canada
(Janis Milford 4:00pm June 10, 2013)

Thanks, May, Clare, and Janis! :-)

(I'm generally optimistic about the future of YA)
(Brent Hartinger 2:21pm June 11, 2013)