The Elephant of Surprise

More about the book

Funny, openly gay high school junior Russel Middlebrook finds the adventure he is looking for when he falls for an anti-consumerist freegan who pops out of the school dumpster. Through Wade, Russel is exposed to new experiences (like eating roadkill) and challenging ideas ("When you don't spend your whole life looking at a television or a computer screen, you can't help but take a good look at the world"). But just as their relationship turns romantic, Russel's friend Gunnar suspects that Wade and his freegan friends may be taking their beliefs to a dangerous extreme.