Hope and Other Punch Lines

Everyone knows "Baby Hope", the girl in an iconic photo taken on 9/11. In the photo, she's a toddler in a tiara holding a red balloon as a woman runs with her away from the towers. "Baby Hope" is actually Abbi Goldstein and fifteen years later, she's looking forward to working at a kids' summer camp in another town where no one will recognize her. She's harboring a secret from her family and just wants to enjoy the summer before her secret comes out. But she didn't count on meeting Noah Stern, a fellow camp counselor, who blackmails her into helping him get interviews with other 9/11 survivors by using her notoriety. He tells her that it's for the school newspaper, but this is just a ruse. Noah is actually trying to discover the truth about the man in the photo running behind Baby Hope and her rescuer, a man with whom he shares a connection that he's not ready to discuss until he has the answers he's looking for. A sublimely written novel about reckoning with the past, Hope and Other Punch Lines by Julie Buxbaum is a must read for fans of realistic fiction.