Last Dance at the Frosty Queen [Hardcover]

Richard Uhlig (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 14, 2007

On the dock of a lake in a tiny town at the corner of Nowhere & Nowhere, he sits counting the seconds until his high school graduation—at which point Arthur M. Flood intends to leave his hick life far behind in the brown Kansas dust. That's the plan. Until . . . up from the lake's muddy depths swims a girl. She's not a mermaid, but she is the one who shakes up Arty's life, makes him mad and mad for her, and helps him find a pathway to his past, his future, and where his heart truly lies.

Teens will recognize their own emotional landscape in this steamy, funny, coming-of-age tale in which the heart tries to hide, only to be utterly exposed by love and lust, lost and found.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

It's 1988 in Harker City, Kansas, population "1,700 smiling faces," and Arty Flood's one goal after graduation is to leave town. There are a few complications, however: His employer owes him $1,400 in back wages, he's having a steamy affair with his art teacher, the local sheriff has blackmailed Arty into dating his daughter, and the family's funeral home is failing. Then the girl of his dreams literally swims into his life. Vanessa, a California girl with problems of her own, helps Arty to see Harker City through an outsider's eyes. Vanessa is a bit too perfect, but her role as a catalyst works well, pushing Arty's first-person perceptions to shift from self-centered and one dimensional to a more mature view of his small town—a place so clearly evoked that readers will find themselves craving those Frosty Queen Zip Burgers. Though the chapters are short and fast paced, there is a lot going on in this first novel, including explicit sex and salty language; but older YAs will respond strongly to Arty's breezily narrated yearnings for life outside of his "hick" hometown. Rutan, Lynn

Review

“Uhlig’s evocation of small-town life is perfect . . . echoed in changes, at turns poignant and dramatic.”—School Library Journal

“Raging hormones, angsty rants and reckless behavior fuel this accomplished black comedy.”—Publishers Weekly


From the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (August 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375839674
• ISBN-13: 978-0375839672
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 1.2 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,371,542 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, October 3, 2007

By 

Joshua A. Bradley (Nowhere, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Last Dance at the Frosty Queen (Hardcover)

Very good novel. Well written and funny. If you like the books "I Love You, Beth Cooper", "Spanking Shakespeare" and "King Dork", you'll get a kick out of this.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite Book(So Far), August 11, 2009

By 

Avid Amazon Buyer ""users 16-year-old dau... (Illinois, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Dance at the Frosty Queen (Mass Market Paperback)

Listen, Im only 17, going on 18 pretty soon I might add, so I've still got a lot of time to read more books. But I've also read a lot of books for my life and my age so far. And I have to say the moment I saw this book the title intrigued me and I quickly checked it out of my library.

I'm a female and I didn't find the authors use of words offending and I was not "grossed out" by the content. I laughed at every minute of it. In fact that's what kept me reading. Hear me out, the author uses some words I've honestly never read in a book before and I've read plenty of books(though now I'm thinking I was reading the wrong books all along haha)and at first I was sort of taken aback when the word hard on first showed up but that's exactly when I knew this book was going to be something like I've never read before. And it turned out to be a good thing.

I'm not gonna sit here and tell you the whole plot of the book, cause between you and me I loathe reviwes that practially give away the whole book. I'm just going to say that it's a hugely hilarious book with probly the best ending to a book I've ever read, It totally took me by surprise. I'm the kind of person who will go to the last chapter or page of a book and read it before I start the book from the beginning but luckily I didn't with this book because I would have been kicking myself for weeks. The ending is GREAT! So just trust me and read it for yourself. This book is a great portrail of life in a small town, I think so anyway. And it totally tells a great story from a teenage boys point of view which isn't written about often in young teen literature, I was so happy to finally be able to get into the mind of a teenage boy and it was hilarious, longing, and shall I say horny? Great Book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable read, December 26, 2008

By 

crazymama - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Dance at the Frosty Queen (Kindle Edition)

This book was a fun read, taking me back to being a teenager in the 1980s, trying to figure out what's next in life. I enjoyed the male teenage perspective, with a storyline that kept me interested.