Here’s the set-up for Robb Skidmore’s The Pursuit of Cool, just $2.99 on Kindle:

Quarter Finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

A novel that uniquely captures the 1980s, The Pursuit of Cool tells the story of Lance Rally and his turbulent college years.

He comes from a super-achieving family and is intent on being a big success. But he is also an inept, hopeless romantic, obsessed with pop culture, and prone to distraction.

Friendships with a punk rocker and a subversive scholar challenge his worldview, and relationships with a beautiful psych major and a feisty goth girl shape and change him.

This coming-of-age journey is a funny and emotional ride through album covers, dance techniques, all-nighter revelations, and corporate internships gone bad. The story comes alive with music and movies which give Lance solace as he questions his beliefs and his heart gets crushed. He tries to capture that illusive quality, that magic of youth, the essence that is “cool.”

Join Lance on his intense and emotional ride!

From the reviewers:

“With plenty of humor and a strong moral on the purpose of youth, The Pursuit of Cool is a strong pick for general fiction collections and those who want an original take on the college dynamic.” –Midwest Book Review

“Skidmore is a very skillful writer, good with the unique insight, and often very humorous. ”  Zan Fraser  |  7 reviewers made a similar statement

“I think most people will identify with him and see bits of themselves in him. ”  C. K. Slezak  |  2 reviewers made a similar statement

“Robb Skidmore’s novel, The Pursuit of Cool” is a well written account of where a young sensitive man coming of age 25 years ago would find himself. ”  bogart  |  2 reviewers made a similar statement

“A skilled writer… A smart account of ’80s college kids… the novel believably summons the ’80s, complete with floppy disks, 9 1/2 Weeks on VHS and R.E.M. cassettes.”  –Kirkus Indie Review

“…An excellent job of taking a character and creating his time and place perfectly. A totally enjoyable flashback ride…”  –Dew on the Kudzu

“From The Clash to Joy Division to Bauhaus…provides the perfect setting. It centers the reader in that hopeful era of high expectations and jaded reality. A great debut, and I can’t wait to read more from Robb Skidmore.”  –The Book Fetish

Visit Amazon’s Robb Skidmore Page

Robb Skidmore writes stories that entertain and inspire.

His contemporary upmarket fiction (in between commercial and literary) takes a love of language and uses it to create richly original characters and intense, moving plots. His short stories have appeared in New Orleans Review, New Millennium Writings, South Carolina Review, Oasis, and Twelve Stories. His nonfiction has appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The Surfer, his ebook novella, can be found on Amazon. His debut novel is The Pursuit of Cool.

He grew up in Charleston, S.C. and graduated with several degrees from Emory University. He has traveled to many far flung parts of the globe and once spent a year camping in national parks and traveling across America. He lives with his wife in Atlanta. You might find Robb drinking kombucha tea, listening to music on his iPod, blogging on his website at robbskidmore.com, or staring at the sky with great wonder and appreciation.

And here, in the comfort of your own browser, is your free sample of THE PURSUIT OF COOL by Robb Skidmore: