Grand and Humble

Book: Grand & Humble
Author: Brent Hartinger
Published: 2006

On the surface, Harlan Chesterton and Manny Tucker couldn’t be more different. Harlan is a popular athlete whose charmed life is all on the surface, as his domineering mother engineers his whole life to reflect well on his politician father. Manny is a theater geek who is discovering that his loving, supportive father has kept secrets his whole life.

But they have some things in common. They were born in the same town, go to the same high school, and even know some of the same people. Most importantly, they both keep having the same nerve-wracking premonitions of death and disaster. So why have Harlan and Manny never met? And what does the intersection at Grand and Humble have to do with it all?

Brent Hartinger is best known for his novel Geography Club, which I haven’t read (yet). However, I just had to blog this story of two very different boys with a terribly similar problem. Family secrets are the key to banishing the nightmares for both boys, if they can only uncover them. Their lives keep brushing up against each other, but never really intersecting until the fascinating twist at the end, which makes a re-read even more fun.