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  • Published: 20 April 2027
  • ISBN: 9780241728277
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $26.00

Don't Tell Me What Happens

  • Raphael Simon and Phillip de Leon



A dual-timeline mystery and queer summer romance as two boys set out on a sun-soaked adventure to uncover how someone else’s love story really ends.

Deliver this journal to Casey Rohner, wherever he is.

Sixteen-year-old Noah is dreading summer in Venice Beach - until he stumbles into Billy Goat Vintage and meets Tomo, the effortlessly cool skateboarder behind the counter. Buried in a box of old records, the boys find a sketchbook from the 1980s: the journal of teen artist Diego, filled with notes, scraps, and drawings of cute boys. This glimpse of the queer past turns into a gripping read when Diego falls for a closeted surfer named Casey - only for their secret romance to come to an abrupt, devastating end.

Noah finds the questions around the journal almost as irresistible as he finds Tomo: what happened to Diego? Where is Casey? And what of Diego’s cryptic request? Tomo’s solution? Track down Casey Rohner and deliver the journal. As the boys set out on a search across the sun-soaked streets of California, Noah can’t quite tell if they’re chasing ghosts, or just maybe forging a future all their own.

  • Published: 20 April 2027
  • ISBN: 9780241728277
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $26.00

Praise for Don't Tell Me What Happens

Don't Tell Me What Happens is tender and moving and FUNNY. Like so many of my most beloved books, it is rollicking, real, and bursting with humanity. Noah and Diego will live inside me for a long time.

Eliot Schrefer, New York Times-bestselling author of The Darkness Outside Us