JUST A GIRL IN THE WHIRL

A teenage poet, burdened by her dysfunctional family, reaches a breaking point in this YA novel.

When Lauren’s father, an actor and addict, left the family and her mother’s bipolar condition worsened, she was left to run the household and protect and care for her mom and younger sisters while also attending high school. The teen’s narration is consistently compelling as she struggles to cope: “I’ve only been on this planet for seventeen years, nine months, and eight days, and I’m already exhausted. But I hate complaining….Everything is fine….I have everything completely, totally, utterly handled.” After two years with no help other than her grandmother’s financial support, Lauren, an aspiring poet, dreams of attending a prestigious writing fellowship when she turns 18. But how can she abandon her vulnerable mother and siblings: Matty, a hurt, snarky 14-year-old; and sweet Sara, who’s 4? When her father suddenly reappears, she feels anger, skepticism, and hope, by turns—but change comes only when Lauren attempts to redefine herself and escape her burden. There’s nothing glib about the protagonist’s emotional journey in this work by playwright/novelist Wood. Lauren resents that her parents’ difficulties have forced her to become the family’s responsible parental figure. She’s embarrassed by her mother’s happy whirling in grocery-store aisles and by the fact that she has to retrieve her, half-dressed, from a public fountain. Yet the author also makes it clear that although Lauren yearns not to be her family’s “fixer,” she also cares too much about her family to relinquish the role. The teen movingly shows compassion and empathy for her mother, seeing the confusion and fear underneath her mother’s exuberance. Her annoyance at adolescent Matty’s sarcasm is tempered, too, by her understanding of the anger that motivates it. Wood also ably gets across the emotion in Lauren’s frank observations, her word-of-the-day journaling, her e.e. cummings–inspired poetry, and her recurring visions of “Dream Lauren” in her sleep. Finally, she skillfully frames Lauren’s defining moment of freedom.

A well-crafted and resonant novel about an overburdened teenage girl’s journey toward self-realization.