LIFE IS FINE

For 15-year-old Samara Tuttle, life is anything but fine. Set against a gritty, gray, urban landscape, Samara lives with her absentee mother, and Q—her mother’s abusive, philandering and generally worthless boyfriend. With no positive role models in her life, Samara chronically skips school, chain-smokes and spends her days at the zoo imagining a friendship with a monkey she names Dru. Even Samara’s teachers are lackluster examples of adulthood, wearing “low rise jeans and flip flops.” When Mr. Holbrook, a new sub donning a dapper suit and a love of poetry, starts at Samara’s school, she is instantly smitten—even though he’s old enough to be her grandfather. Samara’s need to have a responsible, positive adult force in her life evolves into something inappropriate, but Mr. Holbrook turns out to be a more surprising and beneficial force in her life than Samara could have imagined. Though prone to some convenient plot liberties, Whittenberg has penned an overall hopeful tale for Samara, like the Langston Hughes poem for which the novel was named. (Fiction. YA)