Connis - Suggested Reading

Four years.

48 months.

1,461 days.

35,064 hours.

2,103,840 minutes.

126,230,400 seconds.

Thats how long Id waited for the new book by my favorite author, Lukas Gebhardt: Dont Tread on Me.

To put it in perspective, I was graduating middle school when I read Lukass last book, A House of Wooden Windows. That one Id had signed by him. The gorgeous man took my breath away with his words on the daily, and the thrill of knowing I held a very real book-shaped DontTread on Me in my hands made me question even getting out of my car and walking in my house before starting, but the pull of the couch was stronger than the pull of sitting in a running car. Shocking, I know.

I chanted, Dont Tread on Me, Dont Tread on Me, Dont Tread on Me, as I walked inside, fresh from the land of marvel and mischief, spells and superlatives, counter curses, cultures, love-baked digressions, rabbit-trail wisdom, symphonies of folly and fable, illumined reality, and glow-in-the-dark wonder: the local bookstore.

It was ten oclock. There was nary an Evans parent in sight. Both in bed, for sure; they were early risers, which was the point. There were very few things I kept from my parents, but the Evans Highlighter All-Nighter tradition, which Id held since freshman year of high school, was one of them. The Highlighter All-Nighter was the highest point of my rebellion. I stayed up on a school nightthe first school nightto read a book and drink fruit juice out of a carton. On the Spectrum of Safety for Renegade Youths, I was unchartable. The highest of percentiles.

It was a silly secret, but it was a secret nonetheless.

Besides, regardless of tradition, I needed to read DTOM anyway. My long-running book clubQueso... What Are We Reading Next?was meeting in less than twenty-four hours to discuss the first few chapters of DTOM, and I needed to be ready to lead it. No, I didnt need to read the whole thing, but that wasnt the point, was it?

I pulled a carton of mango nectar, the official drink of EHAN, out of the fridge.

I cut up a block of cheddar cheese and put the slices on a plate filled with water crackers.

I walked into the living room, grabbed the orange highlighters out of my pockets (yellow highlighters are overrated), and stood them on their flat ends like pillars to hold up the time and night. Lighthouses to remind me of my direction when the gales of sleepiness came.

I plopped on the couch.

Ready.

Sixteen-year-old Levi lives in the neutral zone of the Second Civil War, on a farm harvesting cash crops for military rations, but when his town is swallowed into the borders of the Western Forces, hes shipped off to the front lines, leaving everything behind.

Seventeen-year-old Joss has never known anything but the Eastlands, Dixie. Born in a house on the Mason-Dixon line, hes been raised to fight for the restoration of a long-forgotten nation. His grandpa is a general; his dad, a high-ranking medic. And now he is a newly promoted second lieutenant.

In a meeting orchestrated by the bloody injustices of war, the boys are thrown together when theyre forced to kill an innocent civilian. With nothing but the idea that there has to be something better, the boys run away. Traveling the Deserters Corridor, the closely monitored northern path of the neutral zone, they stumble on an old limestone mining tunnel, where they build the first library without war-side bias since before the first gunshot was even fired, bringing together literature and cultural items from underground artifact dealers.

As they attempt to fuse the splintered world back together, Levi and Joss find themselves leading a new movement. With an army at their command, they become enemies of both sides of the war, and when the neutral zone is declared forfeit and new battle lines threaten to unravel everything theyve worked for, they must decide if the library, and all it stands for, is worth their lives.

A balm for those brave enough to look for common ground during the Great Unrest.

Colt Cax, author of the New York Times best seller Strange Astrophysics

Lukas Gebhardt paints a poignant picture of the bleeding heart of America.

Ishmael Aventu, author of A Country for Thieves

Nothing like reading a classic book for the first time.

Keri Limonhouse, author of Goody Blus Shoes

Lukas Gebhardt was born in Namibia and now resides in Houston, Texas. He received his doctorate in philosophy at Harvard University and now serves as a professor of philosophy at the University of Houston.

10:34 p.m.

The cover: Design genius. A straight re-creation of the Dont Tread on Me flag. The only exception is that Lukas Gebhardt is inked into the diamond pattern on the snakes body. The snake looks less like clip art and more hand-sketched. Though Im not sure why I think the original snake looked like clip art, considering it was designed in 1775. Which was back when clip art wasnt that advanced.

10:35 p.m.

The acknowledgments (I always read them first): disappointed. My name didnt show up once. I even read through a few more times to make sure.

10:3710:51 p.m. | Pages 113

A civil war. A smart, compassionate boy fighting because he didnt know better. Im already drowning in vicious heartbreak.

10:5211:08 p.m. | Pages 1334

Less engulfed by heartbreak. More engulfed by feelings in general. Such a dark world. Reminds me of Fahrenheit 451, but with more executions and less TV.

11:0811:53 p.m. | Pages 3466

Good.

Lord.

Lukas never disappoints. My highlighter highlights furious and frequent. Blocks of orange everywhere, like a game of page Tetris. Things like And just like that, it came over me. I wasnt even a cog. I was a number on a clockface. I had no mass apart from the machine. Everything was panem et circenses, bread and circuses. The formula for a happy kingdom. Food and pleasure. Pleasure and food. As this was also my diet, this was my fear: If I somehow could comprehend how to leave this place, Id simply dissolve into the atmosphere. Particles in the wind.

12:0512:20 a.m. | Pages 6678

Terrified. Terrified. Terrified. I pace back and forth while reading. How had I lived without this book?