Don't Stop Now by Julie Halpern is Munch-Worthy

On the first day of Lillian's summer before college, she gets a message on her cell from her sort-of friend, Penny. Not only has Penny faked her own kidnapping, but Lil is the only one who figures it out. She knows that Penny's home life has been rough, and that her boyfriend may be abusive. Soon, Penny's family, the local police, and even the FBI are grilling Lil, and she decides to head out West, where Penny has mentioned an acquaintance. And who better to road-trip across the country than with Lil's BFF, Josh. But here's the thing: Lil loves Josh. And Josh doesn't want to "ruin" their amazing friendship.

Josh has a car and his dad's credit card. Lil has her cellphone and a hunch about where Penny is hiding. There's something else she needs to find: Are she and Josh meant to be together?

Who else out there is a huge Julie Halpern fan like me? Because I simply adored both Get Well Soon and Into the Wild Nerd Yonder. Adored. So when I heard about Don't Stop Now, naturally I got really excited because Halpern is just such a fantastic writer. So excited that I immediately started devising a plan for how to get my hands on an early copy. Which I finally did, as you can see.

It actually took me a long time to figure out what Halpern's upcoming novel was about. There's no listing on the publisher's website, and up until recently, it wasn't even on Amazon. I found out a little bit more from Halpern's blog and from emailing the wonderful people at Macmillan, but the summary above I copied from the back of my coveted ARC, because I don't think it's available anywhere else. I couldn't even find an image of the cover except for the ARC cover! But that's probably because Don't Stop Now won't be published until the summer of next year.

Releases June 7, 2011 from Feiwel & Friends.