Jeff Zentner

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Jeff Zentner

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Michael Ondaatje, Jesmyn Ward, Anthony Doerr, Cormac McCarthy, Mohsin ...more

Member Since
June 2007


Jeff Zentner is the author of two New York Times Notable Books: The Serpent King and In the Wild Light, as well as Goodbye Days and Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee. His next book, forthcoming from Grand Central in 2024, is entitled Colton Gentry's Third Act.

Among other honors, he has won the ALA’s William C. Morris Award, the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award twice, the International Literacy Association Award, the Whippoorwill Award, the Muriel Becker Award, and been longlisted twice for the Carnegie Medal. He’s a two-time Southern Book Prize finalist; and was a finalist for the Indies Choice Award. He was selected as a Publishers Weekly Flying Start and an Indies Introduce pick. His books have been translated into fifteen languages.

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Jeff Zentner I went to Goodreads. I read the one-star reviews.
Jeff Zentner Great question! To write the three, I essentially split my personality into thirds and gave each character a third to hold.

To Dill, I gave my sense …more
Great question! To write the three, I essentially split my personality into thirds and gave each character a third to hold.

To Dill, I gave my sense of the world—its beauty, my struggles with faith, my love for music, and my struggles with feeling like external forces defined me.

Travis got my nerdiness for the things I love, a ferocious loyalty to friends, and a desire to live a courageous life.

Lydia got my sense of humor and desire to leave my mark on the world.

All three are some of me; none are all of me.

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Average rating: 4.18 · 45,775 ratings · 10,048 reviews · 10 distinct worksSimilar authors
The Serpent King

4.16 avg rating — 19,780 ratings — published 2016 — 51 editions
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Goodbye Days

4.11 avg rating — 13,529 ratings — published 2017 — 31 editions
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In the Wild Light

4.52 avg rating — 7,456 ratings — published 2021 — 15 editions
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Rayne & Delilah's Midnite M...

3.96 avg rating — 3,777 ratings — published 2019 — 16 editions
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Hope Nation

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4.15 avg rating — 1,155 ratings — published 2018 — 5 editions
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Battle of the Bands

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3.76 avg rating — 258 ratings — published 2021 — 5 editions
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The Gospel of Winds

4.70 avg rating — 10 ratings
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TV Six

0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings
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Sunrise Nights

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Colton Gentry's Third Act

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Benjamin Alire Sáenz, author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe and many other award-winning YA and children's books,...
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Faithful and Virt...
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The Tiger's Wife
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Jeff’s Recent Updates

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TV Six by Jeff Zentner
TV Six
by Jeff Zentner (Goodreads Author)
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Hey everyone, this book became RAYNE & DELILAH’S MIDNITE MATINEE. It’s not a different book but it just sits here, haunting Goodreads. Sorry!
Jeff Zentner added a status update: New book!!!

Alexandra Cooper at Quill Tree has acquired, in a five-house auction, world rights to Sunrise Nights by Brittany Cavallaro and Jeff Zentner. Pitched as a YA Before Sunrise, it tells the story, in verse and dialogue, of a boy and a girl who make a connection on Sunrise Night-a final-night tradition at an arts camp. Publication is set for June 2024
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Colton Gentry's Third Act by Jeff Zentner
Colton Gentry's Third Act
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Jeff Zentner rated a book it was amazing
Hummingbird by Natalie Lloyd
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If I picked the Newbery Award, it would be this book right here. It’s a masterpiece of middle grade. I cried no fewer than three times while reading. If you trust my opinion at all, read it.
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Dark Room Etiquette by Robin Roe
Dark Room Etiquette
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My blurb for this book:

DARK ROOM ETIQUETTE is an utterly harrowing, enthralling, and ultimately hopeful exploration of survival and the journey of recovery from trauma. This book will make you think, but more importantly, it will make you feel.
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In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner
In the Wild Light
by Jeff Zentner (Goodreads Author)
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Every book I write is a love story.

The first question I ask myself when I start work on a new novel is this: what do you love?

This time the answer was: standing in rivers, floating on rivers, reading poems, writing poems, audacious journeys with frie
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Grace and the Gravy Pirates by Aaron Cushley
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This is one of my favorite--if not my favorite--books about gravy
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The Gospel of Winds by Jeff Zentner
The Gospel of Winds
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This is a little digital poetry chapbook I created as a free gift for people who buy IN THE WILD LIGHT from Parnassus Books in Nashville or Reading Rock Books in Dickson, Tennessee. You can still get it if you buy IN THE WILD LIGHT from one of those ...more
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Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Cloud Cuckoo Land
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Quotes by Jeff Zentner  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“If you're going to live, you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

“Nothing makes you feel more naked than someone identifying a desire you never knew you possessed.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

“For the most part, you don't hold the people you love in your heart because they rescued you from drowning or pulled you from a burning house. Mostly you hold them in your heart because they save you, in a million quiet and perfect ways, from being alone.”
Jeff Zentner, Goodbye Days

Topics Mentioning This Author

“If you're going to live, you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

“What you call pride, I call courage.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

“She's it. She's my everything. She's the standard by which I'll judge beauty for the rest of my life. I'll measure every touch to her breath on my skin. Every voice to her voice. Every mind to her mind. My measure of perfection. The name carved into me. If I could, I would lie with her under these stars until my heart burst.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

“Writing is something that you can learn only by doing. To become a writer, you need an imagination, which you clearly have. You need to read books, which you clearly do. And you need to write, which you don't yet do, but should.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

“So when I watch trains, it makes me think about how much movement there is in the world. How every train has dozens of cars and every car has hundreds of parts, and all those parts and cars work day after day. And then there are all these other motions. People are born and die. Seasons change. Rivers flow to the sea. Earth circles the sun and the moon circles Earth. Everything whirring and spinning toward something. And I get to be part of it for a little while, the way I get to watch a train for a minute or two, and then it's gone.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King




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