What do you get when you cross the Virgin Mary with Brooke Shields, add a trash-talking beauty queen wannabe and throw in a couple of talking nipples? One of the most laugh-out-loud books you’ll read all year.

Peter Paddington is 13, overweight, the subject of his classmates’ ridicule, and the victim of too many bad movie-of-the-week storylines. When Peter’s nipples begin speaking to him one day and inform him of their diabolical plan to expose his secret desires to the world, Peter finds himself cornered in a world that seems to have no tolerance for difference.

Peter’s only solace is “The Bedtime Movies” — perfect-world fantasies that lull him to sleep every night. But when the lines between Peter’s fantasy world and his reality begin to blur, no one is safe from the depths of Peter’s imagination — especially Peter himself.

BRIAN FRANCIS is the author of two previous novels. His most recent, Natural Order, was selected by The Toronto Star, Kobo, and The Georgia Straight as a Best Book of the Year. His first novel, Fruit, was a Canada Reads finalist and was selected as one of Amazon and 49th Shelf’s “100 Canadian Books to Read in a Lifetime”. He lives in Toronto.

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“Charming…sweet, tart, and forbidden in all the right places.” — Entertainment Weekly

“[An] endearing delight ... a rare book that makes you laugh out loud while putting a lump in your throat.” — Out Magazine

“Comically poignant … beguilingly alive … a droll and offbeat tale about adolescent secrets, family tensions and, yes, troublesome nipples.” — Seattle Times

“Honest, sad and funny.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“Engrossing … humorous … extreme in its insight and tenacious in its willingness to delve into a tormented youth.” — Denver Post