9/11/01. Everyone *thinks* they know Baby Hope, the one year old girl in a birthday crown carried out of one of the buildings holding a red balloon. But her real name is Abbi and she’s fifteen and can’t erase the unwanted notoriety. Noah wants, even needs, to know Abbi who may hold the key to his questions about that tragic day.
9/11 is one of those indelible dates etched in everyone’s mind. We remember exactly what we were doing we we heard about the twin towers. We recall the feeling in the pit of our stomachs. For me, it’s the day I was driving to the doctors, about to be diagnosed with breast cancer which is the same illness that killed Connie, the woman who saved Abbi, though Connie’s was likely caused by 9/11 Syndrome. Abbi has asthma from inhaling the fumes that day. She also is coughing up blood and thinks her days are numbered.
Julie Buxbaum was written another winner with HOPE AND OTHER PUNCHLINES with quick-witted, believable dialogue and a touching plot.
Both Abbi and Noah are great characters, socially awkward and suffering. Abbi’s friends have dropped her, her grandmother just moved in due to dementia and Abbi can’t escape her Baby Hope legacy. Noah’s father died a few days after he was born in the twin towers. Although his mother tells him otherwise, he believes the unnamed man in the photo is his father.
Buxbaum is an automatic preorder for me.