Fade to Blue by Sean Beaudoin

From the Publisher

Sophie Blue started wearing a black skirt and Midnight Noir lipstick on her last birthday. It was also the day her father disappeared. Or spontaneously combusted. Which is sort of bad timing, since a Popsicle truck with tinted windows has started circling the house.

Kenny Fade is a basketball god. His sneakers cost more than his Jeep. He's the guy all the ladies (and their mommas) want. Bad.

Sophie Blue and Kenny Fade don't have a thing in common. Aside from being reasonably sure they're losing their minds.

Acclaimed author Sean Beaudoin's wildly innovative novel combines uproarious humor with enough plot twists to fill a tube sock. Part thriller, part darkly comic philosophical discussion, and accompanied by a comic book interstitial, Fade to Blue is a whip-smart romp that keeps readers guessing until the last paragraph.

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up—On Sophie Blue's 17th birthday, a nurse at her father's lab gave her a mysterious injection and her father disappeared, leaving behind a swirl of rumors about what really happened to Sophie, who has gone Goth. A year later, she has strange dreams that involve being smashed by a Popsicle truck, hears a constant hum ("gotothelabgotothelabgotothelab"), and copes with her comics-obsessed and increasingly obese younger brother O. S., as well as her out-to-lunch mom. Kenny Fade, basketball star and school heartthrob, also hears and sees bizarre things and, like Sophie, fears for his sanity. And his mother is a nurse! Fade to Blue takes off with a crunch (that Popsicle truck!) and careens wildly to a thought-provoking screecher of an ending in a manic rampage of plot twists, crazy characters, dark comedy, and virtual reality taken to the extreme. A fast, highly entertaining read, this novel will appeal to graphic-novel enthusiasts, techies, and anyone looking for a cleverly written, inventive romp in which every detail counts.—Joyce Adams Burner, National Archives at Kansas City, MO

Kirkus Reviews

Stellar wit and a thrilling pace become mired in complicated plotting in this promising but at times frustrating effort. At the onset, basketball star Kenny Fade and Sophie "Gothika" Blue seem to have little in common but for some recent bizarre experiences that fill them with questions. Experimental in form, the novel begins with chapter none, continues up to 20, inserts a short comic-book novella and then reverses from chapter 20 back to none. The first section (none through 20) is wickedly funny and creepily dreamlike, a satisfying combination that sets the stage for a sinister mystery involving Sophie's missing father's lab and its questionable practices. The mini-comic is rendered in shaded black-and-white art that is decidedly more modern in style than the 1950s tropes it illustrates (boxy robots, scientists in lab coats, buxom nurses). In its final section, the novel becomes almost completely nonlinear. This lack of convention is not necessarily a bad thing, but will definitely require patient readers who are content to be left with more questions than answers. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

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