Sixteen years old Frankie is in for another lonely and boring summer. Until she meets fellow loner, Zeke, who just moved to town. Combining their talents of writing and artistry, they create a poster with a unforgettable phrase. The poster begins to take over their community, inciting a panic that changes their lives.

If there’s anything that I love it is a coming of age story with quirky characters, especially characters on the outskirts of their peer society. I love when two find each other and impact each other’s lives… just like this story. Kevin Wilson has quite the imagination and I am here for it. I loved how a simple phrase made such a difference. It made so much sense to me. As a teen, I also had free thought a few oddball phrases that became sentimental. Thankfully they didn’t cause a mass panic!

“We were sixteen. How do you prevent your life from turning into something so boring that no one wanted to know about it. How did you make yourself special?”

Now is Not the Time to Panic comes out 11/8.

3.5. An interesting plot point that actually kind of worked. The whole idea is these two teenagers hang out one boring summer in a slow moving town. They make up an art piece with a weird phrase, make copies and plaster it all around town. Then this art piece gets momentum in the town and country and world.

Maybe there’s some introspection here that I need to think on but overall I didn’t care for the plot. But it also worked. It was slow but also read fast. It was basic life but also unique.

I enjoyed watching and remembering the insecurities these teenagers had about growing up, feeling ostracized, struggles with parents divorcing, wondering who they are and where they fit in, how to fill those long summer hours of boredom (remember those as a kid?).

Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco Books for the advance ecopy of this book.

I have been highly anticipating reading Now Is Not the Time To Panic by Kevin Wilson. Frankie and Zeke are teen outcasts in a small town. Zeke is visiting his grandmother for the summer while his mother figures out her life. Frankie is a permanent resident of the town. Together they create artwork and poster their town with it. This simple act of rebellion for these teens leads to some life-altering events for the residents of the town. This book has a fast-moving plot that keeps you thinking about the book long after you've finished it. Read and enjoy!

Earlier this year I read another book by Wilson (Nothing To See Here) and loved it, drawing me to this selection. It was not what I was expecting and I didn't love it as much as his first that I had read.

Frankie & Zeke are teens that meet in the summer after Zeke has moved to town. They both outsiders, are lonely and fairly quickly become friends with a bit of teen curiosity/romance. Out of a bit of boredom, they decide to create art and hang it all over town anonymously. It becomes viral and attached to unintended meaning and quickly events and consequences occur, creating the "The Coalfield Panic of 1996." There is a second timeline to the future with Frankie as an adult and it takes a bit for that come together.

I did enjoy "Now Is Not the Time to Panic," but at times found it a bit all over the place and I couldn't fully connect to Frankie - which likely was intended. Wilson is a gifted writer and I will read more from him.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco publishing for an advance e-copy in exchange for my honest opinion. Now Is Not the Time to Panic will be out on 11/8/2022.

I read/listened to Kevin Wilson's "Nothing to See Here" and laughed out loud a couple of times. It was a fun book, so I was eager when I got approved for this title.

This one had all of the quirkiness of "Nothing to See Here," but it wasn't quite as humorous. There were moments where I chuckled, but it was more subdued. And there were a few times when I didn't know where the story was going. It ended up being an OK book, but it didn't quite meet the expectations I had going in.

I may recommend this to others, but if they're looking for something similar to "Nothing to See Here," I'd provide a warning that it's not quite the same type of book.

I received this book free of charge from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Kevin Wilson's books are so easy to fly through. I really enjoyed this coming of age story about Frankie and Zeke's summer. Having not read the synopsis prior to picking it up, I really was just along for the ride and I read it in a day flat! I love how Wilson develops his quirky characters and Frankie is definitely relatable as a young girl who feels like she doesn't fit in anywhere, until suddenly she does. I won't say much more in case others want to go in blind as well!

"The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers, we are the new fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us." - I will probably remember this quote for quite a while!

The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers, we are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.

It's almost time for this weird gem to be out in the world! I enjoyed this one so much, even the author's note. I love how Kevin Wilson creates quirky but real characters.

1996: Frankie (an aspiring author) and Zeke (an artist), both teenagers and outsiders, meet one summer, strike a slightly romantic brief friendship, and create a piece of art. Out of a bit of boredom and a bit of curiosity, they make hundreds of copies of it and hang it in random places in their small town. While the creators manage to remain anonymous, the art goes "viral" and causes mayhem with unintended consequences.

It's been a long time since a coming of age story resonated with me. With Kevin Wilson's amazing writing, I was carried back to the mundanity of a long, hot summer holiday. The above sentence is etched to my mind too, much like it was to Frankie's. I also loved the questions this story raised about what art was and the artists' roles in the creation and reception of art.

4.5 rounded up!

This story was so special, and I think a lot of readers will be able to connect to it, or at least find something they like about the book. For me, I loved the coming of age, witnessing how Frankie and Zeke meet, create art, cause the city (and country) to flip upside down, not realizing how that one summer would change them.

While heartwarming, I also found myself giggling at times and time again. Mainly because Frankie’s obsession with the summer of 1996 reminds me of awkward things as I did as a teenager. All the memories that make you cringe? Yeah, that was this book. But, it wasn’t done in a cringeworthy way. In some sense, it reminds you who you were, and how you’ve grown since that cringey memory.

There was something really spectacular about this book that just really made me happy.

The writing is so simple and digestible, but it comes with even more storylines and life lessons.

If you liked NOTHING TO SEE HERE, there’s a good chance you will like this one and while there aren’t fire pants, there is an outcast vibe that’ll tug at your heartstrings.

Big thank you to Netgalley and Ecco for the ARC! And to Libro FM for the ALC.

Content warnings: death, abandonment, car accident, violence, bipolar diagnosis

This poignant book takes the reader on Zeke and Frankie’s journey from start to impact to end. It captures all the excitement of creating something that is yours, the smugness of a secret shared with a friend, the angst of being a teen, the fear when you act spirals out of your control, and the feeling of being invincible. ⁣⁣
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The beautiful writing, well developed characters and storyline, the vivid emotions captured, the essence of idyllic summer days, the point in time when you’re a teen and the world seems like yours for the taking, and a myriad of other things made me fall for this book.⁣⁣
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Pub date: November 8, 2022⁣
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Thanks to @Eccobooks and @NetGalley for the ARC of this fabulous book that will stay with me for a long time.

I am expecting a wave of people getting the tattoo: "The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us." Really I am! Read this book and you will understand why. With vague hints of John Green's coming of age books and a heavy dose of Kevin Wilson's wonderful quirkiness, this book is a movie that would have become one of John Hughes' classics. I loved reading about the awkward relationship between Frankie and Zeke and how events seemed to quickly spiral out of their control. I am not sure it was intended, but I also had to chuckle at a somewhat nostalgic presentation of how things can go viral. The only drawback was that there were so many characters in the story that I would have loved to learn more about: Frankie's triplet brothers, the recluse across the street, even the absent parents. However, the book contained so many wonderful things, including an evil Nancy Drew (!!!), that the end result was a campy read that will put a secretive smile on your face.

When artists set out to create something new, their goal is to impact the world as deeply as possible. It isn’t their goal to ruin lives; or even worse, unintentionally start the domino effect which takes lives. Unfortunately for Frankie Budge and her friend Zeke, this is exactly what ends up happening when they create a piece of artwork whose vague, ominous message sends the small town of Coalfield into a frenzy.
In Kevin Wilson’s Now Is Not the Time to Panic, readers meet sixteen-year-old Frances ‘Frankie’ Budge and her new friend Zeke, who has been uprooted to Coalfield, Tennessee to live with his grandmother. Zeke’s move follows an unforeseen shift in his home life, in which his father’s affair is found out via Zeke intercepting a phone call. The novel bounces between 1996 and 2017, where teenage-Frankie and adult-Frankie relive the events of “The Coalfield Panic of 1996” thanks to Mazzy Bowers, a writer for The New Yorker who wants to know how two teenagers started a movement so impactful it cost people their lives.
In 1996, these two bright, albeit isolated teenagers, decide to come together over their summer vacation and combine their love of art and creativity to make a collaborative project to spread throughout Coalfield. A town which, as Zeke states, looks “like a bomb was dropped on it, and you guys are just now getting back to normal.” However, they never expected their ‘normal’ to go awry so quickly. Their collaborative artistic attempt is displayed in its final form as a poster, which they deliver anonymously wherever they can throughout the town.
This poster features art by Zeke and a catchphrase by Frankie, who takes inspiration from the novel she has been secretly writing. The phrase itself is nonsensical and causes confusion as posters appear throughout the town, seemingly without a source. “The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.” What could this possibly mean? To Coalfield, it’s a bad omen, and promotes absolute chaos.
This chaos reaches a head when local teenager Casey Ratchet is killed; shot point blank in the chest after throwing a bottle and knocking out ‘anti-art’ supporter Mr. Ferris. This is only one of numerous deaths, either in Coalfield or throughout the country as the poster spreads. Frankie’s words are left in suicide notes and pasted on buildings in New York City, and still, she and Zeke remain anonymous – Zeke staying that way even when Mazzy Bowers discovers (what she thinks) is only Frankie’s secret.
Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here and The Fang Family, is notorious for writing teenage female leads. A white man in his mid-forties, Wilson arguably lacks the deep understanding that comes with the female teenage mind – one that cannot be taught, for its experience that only comes with being a female teenager. The deep connection Frankie and Zeke share is not one to be discredited, but it is one to be questioned when handled in the scope and perspective of an author who has not lived through these experiences; specifically in reference to the lack of drive Frankie exhibits to connect to anyone else in the story despite growing up alongside them, thus seeming near obsessed with Zeke despite his obvious discomforts multiple times throughout the novel. The possible misrepresentation of a strong female voice throughout the text is a dangerous and slippery slope, especially as Frankie is the main character representing both her and Zeke, and Zeke’s voice is very much overshadowed by Frankie’s.
Wilson’s lack of understanding of the female brain is widened also to mother daughter relationships and shown in blinding detail during chapter five when Frankie’s mother wakes her up to hand her a box of condoms. The entire conversation is stilted, odd, and leaves a bad taste in the mouth as Wilson attempts for a ‘Hallmark movie moment’ of bonding and misses by a mile. “You’re a young woman, and your body is your body, and that’s fine, I respect that. And its natural, like we talked about before, to have desires”. Frankie’s mother wakes her to tell her this, and the pseudo-intimacy of the moment is questionable at best. So is Frankie’s insistence on repeating her ‘catchphrase’ after her mother leaves the room.
Now Is Not the Time to Panic is a fun, short novel where the reader can throw themselves into the world of art and bask in the question of ‘what can happen when art leaves its intended audience’, but it does not relate to the teenage female experience in an authentic way. As a woman who was once a teenager, as well as a writer, I found myself wondering whether Wilson wanted an original main character, or a “manic-pixie-dream-girl” stereotype.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I absolutely loved it! I had been hearing about this book on several "most anticipated books" lists, and I am so glad I read it. The writing, the plot, the characters - loved it all.

I was over the moon excited to be granted an advanced copy of Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson, since I absolutely adored Nothing to See Here. As a coming of age novel, Now Is Not the Time... has it all. It takes you back to the carefree summers of your teen years, hanging with a best friend, doing nothing at all, or causing a bit of chaos! This novel has personal meaning to the author, as he notes in the foreword regarding writing the book.

Frankie and Zeke are creative teenagers who team up to make a piece of art that causes more of an impact on their community than expected. The ripple effect that they initiate has deep repercussions through the rest of their lives. I loved this perspective, which was the majority of the book, and was swept up in the emotions of the two teenagers, as they discover a deep friendship that may or may not be tipping into young love. The way their posters and rumors about it spread through and beyond the town they live in, even before the age of the internet, demonstrates how easy it is to lose control of what we put out into the world. I also found the different reactions each of the main characters had to events interesting.

The dual timeline of this novel has Frankie contacted by a reporter more than 20 years after that all-important summer, and the opportunity to reveal what has been kept secret since. I felt like this storyline was cut short, not fully fleshed out, and I was left hanging by the ending of the book. Had this aspect been explored a bit more fully, the book would have warranted 5 stars, for me.

Thank you Netgalley and Ecco for the digital ARC of Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson. The opinions in this review are my own.

This was my first book by Kevin Wilson and the highest praise I can give is saying I'll be adding him to my list of authors to watch for going forward. This book was phenomenal. Not just a coming-of-age story, but a fantastic narrative about growing up in a small town in the 90s, finding first love (even if you insist that you're just friends), and figuring out how to leave your mark on the world. Two awkward teenagers, thrown together. A unique, compelling story.

Thank you to Ecco books and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this digital arc

This was fast & good! Don’t read the blurb - it gives too much away. It’s teenage friendship and growing pains and struggling to make art. And paranoia, and snowballing…it’s good!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author Kevin Wilson and publisher for the advanced copy of this book.

I was so hopeful for this one. I loved Kevin's last novel, Nothing to See Here. I LOVED it! Such a different concept.

Unfortunately, I only got about 75% through it and I just didn't care. I don't normally like books with kids in them but I made the exception with this one since I loved his previous book so much. The main characters, Frankie and Zeke just didn't hold my attention.

Next!

“Real obsession if you did it right, was the same intensity every single time, a kind of electrocution that kept your heart beating in time. It was so good.” Hurrah we have a new Kevin Wilson book! And it is also so good! As with many of his other novels, this one absolutely nails adolescent angst: the turmoil that can roil with coming of age, which can take a lifetime to resolve, and is frequently an ongoing project.
Now Is Not the Time to Panic, displays Wilson’s characteristic creativity, wit, honesty, and tempered heartbreak. In this case it’s the story of Frankie and Zeke, two teenage outsiders in a small town where everyone knows your name. Frankie, a reclusive loner, is trying to unpack or maybe just pack up the loss and estrangement of her father to a new family, leaving her with out-of-control triplet older brothers, a wiped-out mother, and her boredom. She meets Zeke who is visiting his grandmother for the summer, along with his mother, also in recovery for a marriage gone sour.

“We were sixteen. How do you prevent your life from turning into something so boring that no one wanted to know about it? How did you make yourself special?” Frankie is writing a novel; Zeke likes to draw. Together they experiment with kissing, they experiment with art. In an afternoon, at Zeke’s urging, Frankie thinks of a line, which in their minds becomes as powerful as an invocation from Tolkien, and they make a remarkable poster together. The combination of a forgotten copier in the garage, Zeke’s spectral drawings, and the evocative mystery of Frankie’s words, leads to their decision to anonymously paper the town with copies of it. And people and small groups and small businesses tear them down and then they goes up again and everyone begin to notice. Things begin to go viral before the term was ever used or imagined. And then things start to go rather badly, which is always a chance when ambiguity is involved. There is a surfeit of fear and stratagems and conspiracy theories. Then there are deaths. Frankie and Zeke share a great secret now, which will take years to unspool.

The narrative alternates between that momentous summer and a time, decades later, as Frankie, now married and a mother, is confronted by a journalist who has determined that Frankie is the creator of that poster which has graced countless dorm room walls. The journalist will go public with her findings but wants to talk with Frankie. But Frankie first needs to locate Zeke who seems to have fallen off the grid. And to find him she has to go headfirst into to some very disturbing memories about that summer, memories which are seeking their level like water.

It is hard to remember what a moment of cultural zeitgeist was before the internet governed our lives. But it is not hard to remember a young age when you need so badly to make your mark on the world and when you first become aware of how small and suffocating your world is. Wilson perfectly calibrates this feeling, so much so that the writing seems synchronous with the events as they are happening; few writers can produce both this immediacy and arouse a deep sense of commitment to their characters. It pays off. Highly recommended because it’s just that good and who else writes like Kevin Wilson?

10+ stars!!!

Can I do a cartwheel on my pogo stick?

OMG! OMG! OMG! New favorite book of the year! I’m so wired, I can barely write. This book sent me running to the shed to get my pogo stick. I may have to be on it for days. I Googled it and supposedly doing cartwheels while riding a pogo stick is not advised. But how to contain myself?

I want to go inside Wilson’s head and hang out for a few years. I’d be quiet, I just want to see where his mind takes him because believe me, he goes to some far-out places and builds a cool world that feels both weird and welcoming. His stories are out there, but also in here, close. His writing, my soul, matchy-matchy. Pure magic. You’ve probably heard enough of this gush, but I can’t stop the flood. Wilson definitely sprinkled something into my drink, because one night I was so jazzed I couldn’t even lie down; I was pacing and shaking my head, almost running around in circles, reviewing what was happening in the book. I still had half the book to read, but I was all a-pace, giddy and manic. The story was exploding and so was my head (in an exciting way). Sometimes a book hits you just right.

This is such a unique book. It’s about two teenage nerds who live in a small town. They ban together and create a poster. They set a train in motion and no one can find the brake pedal. That’s all I’m going to say—you need to experience this baby yourself. I will say that I still find myself happily and eerily repeating two sentences over and over, even though the book is over and over. And I’m betting other readers may be doing the same. The lines have become part of my psyche.

There are so many reasons I love this book! Probably the biggest deal is the mind-blowing, imaginative plot. And the book deals with things that fascinate me, like obsession—and believe me, there’s obsession out the ying yang here. The story is also about mob mentality. About art. And the love of words, the power of words. And it’s about this very real, very intense relationship between two interesting people. A big plus for me is that there isn’t any description—no beautiful bayous or button-up boots. Setting and appearance are not important; a luscious plot, cool characters, and smart dialogue rule. But, oh, I don’t feel great about listing a bunch of reasons I’m in love with this book; somehow that detracts from the vibes this book is still giving off, days after I finished it. It’s like falling in love and then making a list of pros vs cons—it just kills the mood.

I’m not crazy about teen books, so I wasn’t happy when I found out that the stars were teens. But believe me, this is no typical teen book. Never ever is it sentimental, never ever is it cutesy, and never ever does it abuse the angst angle. The friendship is rich and complex, and although words like “heartwarming” might be used to describe it, I prefer to not do so. Yes, it’s heartwarming but that makes it sound too run-of-the-mill. I don’t think all warm and cozy when I think of this book. I think fire and excitement.

There’s a to-die-for author’s note before the story starts. I missed it when I started reading, and found it when I was halfway through the book. I advise skipping over the author’s note at first, too, because I think it might take a little of the magic away if you know the story going into it. Reading it mid-stream worked great for me.

Please try to avoid the blurb, as it tells you the whole damn story! I read it only after I finished the book. It’s a flat retelling of the plot, and if you read it, you’ll have no idea about the magic, never mind that there will be no surprises.

I realize some people will not like all this hype (and I’ll feel awful if they read this book and are let down), but I’m a wiggle worm with excitement and I can’t help it. I hope everyone else goes all giddy, too, and grabs a pogo stick.

Books like this are why I love literature. I bow to Kevin Wilson. What a genius!

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

A chance meeting of two teens in 1996 has life-altering effects after they create a piece of art that goes viral before that was even a thing.

This book encapsulates feelings one experiences in youth: invincibility, limitless time, the urge to create something that will be impactful and lasting. It also explores feeling like an outcast and the fact that that doesn’t necessarily go away as an adult.

Wilson’s quirky characters and sharp, humorous dialogue create an authentic snapshot of a passionate friendship. Even though it is only a brief relationship, it has enduring and poignant reverberations that ripple through time.

“Now Is Not The Time to Panic” is a terrific chronicle of the pre-Internet era and how stories and panics spread.

The book is about Zeke and Frankie, two artistic teenage outcasts in a small Tennessee town. Using a stolen photocopier and their respective artistic talents (he's an artist and she's a writer), they create a poster with a cryptic slogan that they begin posting around town. At first, it's just a strange thing but one thing leads to another and suddenly there's a full blown panic.

While it's set in the early 90s, it's thankfully not an exercise in nostalgia with crammed in pop culture references. Rather, it's a chronicle of a pre-Internet, pre-social media time, when outcasts didn't have built-in communities and information and misinformation couldn't spread with a click.

If I had one complaint, and it's minor, it's that the section set in 2017 feels shoehorned in. It's still good but, like most people's adulthood vs their teenage years, it lacks the immediacy of the earlier sections.

I've been a fan since "The Family Fang” and recommend this along with the author’s other works.