Everyone did NOT do it.

So lay down a bit, forget about it.

But if it was really bothering you.

Then just look it up online.

Here is a summary.

When Tulip changes her name to Hope, she figures that it would make everything okay in her life. She soon discovers that a name, no matter how positive it is, doesn’t always ensure a perfect life. Nevertheless, she keeps hoping that her life will change as she tries to be the best waitress in the world — that is Hope’s challenge, and turns out to be one of her best assets in Joan Bauer’s new book, HOPE WAS HERE.

Ever since Hope’s mother abandoned her as a baby, Hope follows her Aunt Addie around the country, longing for a permanent home and always looking for the father she doesn’t know. However, she and her aunt, who is an extraordinary cook, go where the jobs and the money are. This last move is to Mulhoney, Wisconsin. Leaving the greatest diner in Brooklyn — after Aunt Addie’s partner, Gleason Beal, cleaned out the business bank account — is the hardest challenge Hope has had to face. Hope says good-bye to New York by leaving her usual calling card, “Hope Was Here” written in half-inch tall letters on one of the boards.

Hope does find a lot of hope in Mulhoney, though. She falls in love with Braverman the cook, and she helps G. T. Stoop with his election campaign. But even hope can’t always assure success. G. T. loses the election, and crooked politician Eli Millstone is reelected as Mayor of Mulhoney. However, everything looks brighter when G. T. finds out that his leukemia is in remission.

Will Hope find her father? Will Aunt Addie and Hope find happiness and permanence with G. T. Stoop and the Welcome Stairways Diner? Hope struggles with these questions as she tries to grow up and remember that, although she has a lot to overcome, she also has a lot for which to be thankful.

HOPE WAS HERE is a deliciously funny look at Mulhoney’s corrupt small-town politics and Hope and Aunt Addie’s struggles to be successful in the food service industry. It is sometimes sad and always poignant as the characters try to work out their problems. G. T. Stoop fights to overcome his leukemia. There’s a mouse in the salad, and a hearse following G. T. around town, parking outside the diner. Braverman is beaten for standing up for what he believes is right, and Hope keeps fighting her past and looking for her future. Once again, Joan Bauer delivers a fast-paced and satisfying young adult novel.

— Reviewed by Audrey Marie Danielson

http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/0399231420.asp

Book title: Hope was Here by: Joan Bauer The main character in this book is Hope. She lives with her aunt in New York. She lives with her aunt because her mom did not want the responsibility for her. Her name was not Hope then her name was Tulip. Her aunt Addie let her change her name legally on her twelfth birthday from Tulip Yancey to Hope Yancey. Hope loved New York because she had a good life, a good job, good friends and good education. Till one day Hope found out that her aunt Addie got robbed by her own employee named Gleason Beal. So they have to move to Wisconsin. They got new jobs at the Welcome Stairways diner. That?s when they meet G.T. Stoop. He wants to run for mayor of Wisconsin. The only bad thing about him is he has leukemia so everyone will be sad when he dies. The theme of this book is to believe in yourself and to keep faith and trust in yourself. The most important thing that happened in the beginning of Hope Was Here is you meet some of the main characters like Hope and her aunt Addie and it gives good detail of both characters. It also says that every time Hope leaves a place she write Hope was Here in small letters. In the middle of Hope Was Here Addie and Hope movie to Wisconsin and meet new people like G.T. Stoop, Lou Ellen, Flo and a boy named Braverman and at the end of the book Hope and Braverman go off to college.

http://www.bookrags.com/shortguide-hope-was-here/overview.html