The Twelve-Fingered Boy
From the Series The Twelve-Fingered Boy Trilogy
Fifteen-year-old Shreve Cannon doesn’t mind juvie. He’s got a good business dealing contraband candy, and three meals a day are more than his drunk mother managed to provide. In juvie, the rules never change and everyone is the same. In juvie, Shreve has life figured out. Then the new fish shows up.
Jack’s a quiet kid. Small. Cries himself to sleep too. He’s no standard-issue titty-baby, though. There’s his hands—more specifically his fingers, all twelve of ‘em. And when he gets angry, something weird happens. The air wavers. You feel a slight pressure in your chest. And then…well, best take cover.
Jack isn’t the only new face in juvie. There’s Mr. Quincrux. Quincrux has an unusual interest in Jack and Shreve, and it quickly becomes clear that innocent bystanders aren’t going to get in his way. So Jack and Shreve bust out.
On the lam, they quickly discover that Jack has abilities—hell, superpowers—that might just give them a fighting chance against Quincrux, if they can stay alive long enough to figure them out.
| Format | Your Price | Add |
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978-1-4677-7086-6
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$23.99 |
Awards
- YALSA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults
- Children's Book Committee at Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year
Reviews
The Horn Book Magazine
“Readers will enjoy this trilogy debut, a wild and riveting tale full of allusions to fairy tales, movies, and comic book heroes…Polydactyl heroes are rare in children’s literature, and so are novels like this that make the fantastical utterly believable.” —The Horn Book Magazine
School Library Journal
“Shreve is an admirable, wise protagonist…. Fans of Alexander Gordon Smith’s ‘Escape from Furnace’ series (Farrar) will enjoy the fast-paced paranormal twists this novel offers, and the ending will leave them wanting more.” —School Library Journal
Booklist
“Jacobs’ storytelling has the effortless velocity of early Dean Koontz, and his prose is textured with hard-boiled grit… An expertly spiced stew of attitude, humor, horror, and grief.” —starred, Booklist
Publishers Weekly
“It’s a little bit Shawshank Redemption, a little bit X-Men, as adult author Jacobs (This Dark Earth) launches a promising trilogy about superhuman teens… [T]he premise is sound, Shreve’s hard-edged narrative voice is strong, and Jacobs skillfully builds tension and mystery throughout.” —Publishers Weekly
Brenna Yovanoff
“A fast-paced, ferocious nightmare of a story—gritty, magical, and surprisingly tender.” –Brenna Yovanoff, New York Times Bestselling author of The Replacement
Andrew Smith
“John Hornor Jacobs’s The Twelve-Fingered Boy is a thrill ride. With candy. And polydactyl, reluctantly heroic kids who go up against all odds in a world of uncontrollable superpowers and unrelenting bad guys. Exciting, suspenseful, creepy, and fun—The Twelve-Fingered Boy is a terrific, fast-paced read!” —Andrew Smith, award-winning author of The Marbury Lens and Stick
Jonathan Maberry
“John Hornor Jacobs conjures dark magic with The Twelve-Fingered Boy. A powerful new voice whispering out of the dark. A brilliant first YA novel!” —Jonathan Maberry, author of the acclaimed Rot and Ruin, New York Times bestselling author of The King of Plagues and Patient Zero