A Minnesota teen who thinks he leads the perfect life finds out that he doesn’t. All is golden for Jed: he’s number one on the tennis team; his father lets him drive his muscle Camaro; he’s got the prettiest girl in school adorning the passenger seat; his parents are rich, beautiful, and successful. All is golden, that is, until a mysterious girl demands a meeting one day to tell him that his father is having an affair with her mother—and suddenly all of Jed’s assumptions fly out the window. As he pursues the truth of the matter, his life begins to unravel, and he learns that he is just as subject to human misery as anyone else. Weaver (Memory Boy, 2001, etc.) succeeds beautifully in limning the raw emotions of a family under stress and in creating a brutally honest voice for his protagonist. When Jed comes home from school the day after his father moves out, his mother “suddenly began to weep. I crossed the foyer and held her. It was the least I could do. But it pissed me off, and she felt frail and sharp boned and lost, and something in my heart turned cold.” Weaver is less successful at developing the relationship between Jed and Laura, the girl who tells him of the affair. Their e-relationship is convincing, as is their growing attachment to each other, but the focus on emotion is wrenched off-course when Laura’s troubled little sister tries to paddle away to Canada and she and Jed pursue her through the Boundary Waters in a canoe. This diversion into outdoor adventure does another U-turn when their rescue ends in tragedy, and Jed ends up living in his bedroom, obsessed with a computer game in which he designs a family of total losers. Didactically appropriate, this apocalyptic ending nevertheless betrays the emotional honesty of the first half of the story. Worthwhile, but a pity about the trifurcated personality. (Fiction. YA)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-009473-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.
In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me, three characters tell their sides of the story.
Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind. (author’s note, content warning) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781728276229
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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