DEAR BOBBY

A boy on the cusp of adulthood confronts his split childhood and finds a sense of balance between his two families, his two cultures and his two languages.

Billy’s life changed drastically when his biological father kidnapped him from his adoptive family at the age of ten and whisked him away to New Mexico to live a life of rodeos, pickup trucks and rifles. Five years later, everything changes again when he gets picked up by the police, who run his fingerprints and discover Billy has been reported missing for years. Billy returns to his old life in the Midwest, but, of course, you can never really go home again. He deals with his sense of displacement by writing imaginary and real letters to his friend Bobby back in New Mexico, who has a special understanding of what it’s like to belong to two families due to his array of stepparents and stepsiblings. When Bobby commits suicide a few months before graduation, Billy travels back to the town he called home and begins the painful process of stitching the two halves of his life together. Roybal has written a sensitive novel about the problems teenagers can have trying to satisfy multiple identities. While most children avoid the horror of being kidnapped, nearly everyone goes through a period when they ponder their real selves, and this book speaks to that confusion. Teenagers will make up the largest audience–they may recognize traces of their emotions and appreciate the drama in the book, like Billy’s near coupling with Bobby’s little sister. Though the dialogue occasionally turns trite and a little too packed with necessary information, it generally maintains an elasticity and natural cadence. The author also has a knack for describing the various landscapes Billy encounters, whether the “aspen forests in summer, with silvery green trunks and soft green leaves” or the junk corner of the cabin he’d lived in, now transformed into a child’s play area.

Lasting, believable characters and a plot that will keep readers guessing.