Car Trouble [Paperback]

Jeanne DuPrau (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 2006

Duff Pringle has bought his first car. (Used.) He's got six days to drive 3,000 miles cross-country to California and start a new hi-tech job that will make him wealthy. (Sort of.) Nothing can stop him. (Or can it?)

Uh-oh . . . CAR TROUBLE.

Duff's Ford Escort barely makes it a hundred miles from home before breaking down. What's he supposed to do? He's promised his new boss he'll be there by Monday. But he's also promised himself that he'll make this journey by car, so he can really see the country. Using his laptop and some quick thinking, he pieces together a way to continue his trip. What he doesn't plan on are the people he meets along the road. There's Stu, a hitchhiker with a secret; Bonnie, an aspiring singer with a con artist for a mother; two thugs looking for a trunkful of cash; and Moony, the terrier prone to carsickness.

From Jeanne DuPrau, the New York Times best-selling author of The City of Ember, comes an exciting road trip with more than a few pit stops.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up–Computer whiz Duff Pringle, 17, has a used car and six days to get from Virginia to California where a job awaits him creating computer games. When he breaks down shortly after he sets out, he finds someone who has a car that needs to be driven to St. Louis. He picks up Stu, a seemingly harmless drifter, who turns out to be a blessing and a curse. During the ride, Duff explains that he doesn't have time for girls, but in reality he simply doesn't know how to talk to them. In St. Louis, Duff meets Bonnie, the teenage daughter of the vehicle's owner, a con artist hospitalized in Virginia. She decides to travel with the guys to California where she can stay with an aunt. Slowly Duff begins to break out of his shell and to have a relationship with her. His transition does not occur with the push of a button; instead it takes place over real-time, and even though there's no job when he reaches California, readers know that his life is on the right track. Ending with hope, Car Trouble is a good read that is kept moving by strong characters who steer the flow of the story.–Tracy Karbel, Glenside Public Library District, Glendale Heights, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Gr. 7-10. Recent high-school grad and computer-whiz Duff Pringle is on a cross-country road trip, headed from home in Richmond, Virginia, to a California job designing the next-generation something or other for a company that modestly calls itself "Incredibility, Inc." Alas, real life doesn't run as smoothly as a computer program, and, in short order, Duff's battered old Ford breaks down, he meets a fast-talking hitchhiker in a wild shirt, loses his wallet in a scary biker restaurant, finds himself stranded in St. Louis, and, well, that's just the tip of an iceberg of troubles. The author of the well-received sf novels The City of Ember (2003) and The People of Sparks (2004), DuPrau also shows a nice flair for humorous, character-driven, realistic fiction. Although there are more smiles than guffaws in this sometimes slow-moving story, teens will find Duff good company and will be glad to go along with him for the ride. Michael Cart
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 13 and up
  
• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Greenwillow Books (October 10, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060736755
• ISBN-13: 978-0060736750
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,597,432 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeanne DuPrau is the author of The New York Timesbestseller The City of Ember and its companion The People of Sparks. She lives in Menlo Park, California, and drives a hybrid car that runs on a combination of gas and electricity.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not a Memorable Book But Good Nonetheless, May 17, 2006

By 

Teen Reviewer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Car Trouble (Hardcover)

I read this book recently and I found it to be okay. I rather enjoyed the original characters. Each one was unique in their own way. Each character had their own spot in the story and none of them were pushed to the back of the spotlight. The overall plot of the story is very interesting and humorous. I disliked one thing with the plot; a really weird series of events would have to happen in real life for it to ever occur. The sense of humor is great throughout the entire story and I found myself laughing in the middle of reading it. The main character Duff changed a lot through the story and gained a lot of wisdom in a short time span. The stories that have characters changing over time I think are the easiest to relate to. I also think the book is okay because of its length. I think the book is too short to make a huge impact on the reader. Compared to other books I have read this one just doesn't stand out in my mind. It is a good book to read in your spare time but don't take a lot of time to explore any more of the book. In conclusion I gave this book 3 out 5 stars.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A FANTASTIC ROAD TRIP!, August 28, 2005

By 

Linda Joy Singleton "Linda Joy Singleton" (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Car Trouble (Hardcover)

CAR TROUBLE is the title of Jeanne DuPrau's newest book. Since she wrote CITY OF EMBER and SPARKS, I've been a huge fan. CAR TROUBLE is a totally different genre than DuPrau's fantasy realism books, more of a teen comedy with secrets, bad guys and a little romance. I LOVED it!

CAR TROUBLE is a funny light YA about the misadventures of a 17 year old computer genius who is driving cross-country to start a fabulous job in CA. Not only does he encounter "car trouble" and share the trip with two interesting friends, but he gains an awareness of alternate fuel types and a growing desire to change the world, which brings about positive changes in himself.

This book offers a fun, surprising road adventure that will appeal to fans of Gordon Korman, Joan Bauer and David Lubar.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Gentle YA Roadtrip Tale, February 6, 2008

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Car Trouble (Paperback)

For some reason my wife has gotten into a groove of reading YA (young adult) books lately, and as a result, I end up reading some almost by accident. I dipped into the first few pages of this one to vet it for her, and over the course of a few days, ended up reading the entire thing (it's a quick read, about two or three hours at most). The story is pretty simple and gentle, unlike so many "issue" YA books that appear these days, which seem to draw their inspiration from cautionary afterschool specials and then amp them up.

Here we meet 17-year-old computer geek Duff Pringle (is it just me, or does sound more like Homer Simpson's favorite brand of potato chips than a real person's name?), as he embarks on that quintessential American rite of passage -- a road trip. He's passing up college for a dot-com job in San Jose, and has a week to drive his decrepit Ford Escort cross-country from Richmond. Of course, things don't go as planned, and wacky antics ensue, involving a '57 Chevy, a surfer-dude hitchhiker, a cute girl and her vomiting dog, a biker bar, and a couple of goons.

Duff is a pretty one-dimensional character, the classic supergeek who's good with computers and bad with people. Over the course of the story he's forced to deal with people, and of course, as a result, grows up a bit. It would have been nice if he were a bit more nuanced -- computer geek kids are so thick on the ground these days that it's hard to buy him as a totally friendless loser. That archetype worked better back in the '80s, but is much less plausible now. Hitchhiker Stu is a charmer, but clearly bad news, so the reader spends most of the story waiting for the shoe to drop with him. The third person who joins Duff on the ride is Bonnie, who brings a little more reality and level-headedness to the story (although you have to wonder at her wisdom in taking a cross-country ride from two guy she jut met -- talk about sketchy...).

In the end of course everything more or less works out and no one is done any lasting damage. It's a perfectly fine story, albeit one that you'll have completely forgotten about a week later.