An Otherwise Perfect Plan: A Novel of Mystery, Love, and of Chocolate that Defies Description

A fiercely intelligent, introspective, and laugh-out-loud funny young adult novel of self-discovery narrated by a quirky teenage girl who uses snarky humor, hyperbole and wild flights of fancy as she tries to make sense of her life with a single mom working two soul-crushing jobs, dysfunctional high school teachers, and her own unruly emotions with a mind of their own.

Gwen Pendergrass has a problem.

Well, a whole bunch if you really want to start counting, but then again, what sixteen-year-old doesn't?

Her latest is an assignment for her high school English class to write a paper on her earliest memory of doing something meaningful with her father, only she's got zip. Nada. Absolutely no memories of him at all.

She strongly suspects this is due to never having actually met the man. In fact, the only presence he's ever had in her life is as a face in a small strip of photobooth photos taken somewhere in Las Vegas during "The Weekend She Was Made" (ew....!) In these photos, both he and her mom look really happy, and kind of drunk, which Gwen figures explains a lot. Or, if not a lot, at least her birth nine months later.

Aside from showing her the photo strip, Gwen's Mom has flat out refused to tell Gwen anything about him, not even his name, leaving Gwen with an enduring mystery that she's worried like a loose tooth. Though without the shiny dollar coin that the tooth would bring at the end.

All this changes when one of Gwen's forgotten plans suddenly gives Gwen's Mom the chance to utterly change her life and reclaim the opportunities she'd given up when she'd dropped out of college to have Gwen. It actually seems like their luck might have finally changed... until Gwen's Mom announces she has to turn it down solely because of her parental responsibilities.

Gwen refuses to accept this. She cannot, will not, let herself once again be the obstacle to her mom's happiness. Instead, she ropes her best friend Peter into helping her try to find her father, undeterred by the fact that she knows literally nothing about him, not even his name. The perfect plan... well, until her white lies, scheming, and emotional roller-coaster start to make a mess of everything, and it becomes a wild race to find her dad before her mom catches on, her head explodes, or it all completely spirals out of control.

Author: Ken Schafer
Publisher: Moon Jumper Press
Published: 07/31/2023
Pages: 276
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.82lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.58d
ISBN: 9781958456033