Matt de la Peña - The Living

Last but not least, I’d like to thank all the supportive friends who agreed to accompany me on the cruise I took to research this book. Oh, wait, none of you would go with me. Even when I begged and offered to pay. Even after I posted several desperate pleas on Facebook: “Come on, someone come with me on this cruise. I can’t board a ship for a full week by myself.” No responses. Zero. Oh, and the cruise I randomly picked turned out to be a “family” voyage, too. So all the moms and dads kept shooting me dirty looks and shielding their kids from me. I could read their minds: Who’s this random guy creeping around the Lido Deck by himself sipping piña coladas? So, yeah, thanks for the company, guys. Way to come through for your boy.

The Living is Matt de la Peña’s fifth novel. He attended the University of the Pacific on a basketball scholarship and went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at San Diego State University. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he teaches creative writing. Look for Matt de la Peña’s other books, Ball Don’t Lie, Mexican WhiteBoy, We Were Here, and I Will Save You, all available from Delacorte Press.

Ball Don’t Lie

Mexican WhiteBoy

We Were Here

I Will Save You

This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2013 by Matt de la Peña

Jacket art copyright © 2013 by Philip Straub

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Peña, Matt de la.

The living / Matt de la Peña. — First edition.

pages cm

Summary: After an earthquake destroys California and a tsunami wrecks the luxury cruise ship where he is a summer employee, high schooler Shy confronts another deadly surprise.

ISBN 978-0-385-74120-0 (hc) — ISBN 978-0-375-98991-9 (glb) — ISBN 978-0-375-98435-8 (ebook) [1. Survival—Fiction. 2. Natural disasters— Fiction. 3. Diseases—Fiction. 4. Cruise ships—Fiction. 5. Mexican Americans—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.P3725Li 2013

[Fic]—dc23

2012050778

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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