THE FLIPSIDE OF PERFECT

During the school year in Michigan, she’s “prim and proper AJ”; during summers in Florida, she’s “free and wild Della.” Nowhere does she feel completely herself.

In chapters alternating between her disparate lives, the protagonist, a rising high school senior, describes one of her selves as hyperorganized, driven, and perfectionist. Living with her lifestyle-blogger mother, she attends a prestigious private school and has irksome responsibility for her younger half sisters. Time spent at her father’s bait shop, in contrast, is laid-back, involving relaxation at the beach and babying by her adoring older stepsiblings. But when her rebellious half sister precipitates a crisis, her two identities collide. Both worlds are limned in leisurely detail: the stifling pressure of expectations, the shallow cruelties of her school friends, and the cheerful tackiness of the rural ocean town. Yet the narrator never quite clarifies why she feels she needs to keep everything so cartoonishly separated. Continually bemoaning her self-imposed dilemma while remaining oblivious to the struggles of those she claims to love, she’s realistically imperfect but may be a difficult character to root for. Ultimately, she has many dramatic experiences, but actual character growth feels lacking. Refreshingly, characters display a wide variety of spiritual beliefs, from atheist to devout, presented as a normal part of their lives. Main characters are cued as White; one of AJ/Della’s sisters is queer.

Fairy-tale solutions make readers less invested in the narrator’s newfound balance and maturity.