WHERE PEOPLE LIKE US LIVE

Starting over yet again in a small town, a girl learns a local teen’s dark secret. Her father never remains at one job for long, and the most recent move lands 14-year-old Libby and her family in Racine, Wis. After developing a friendship with Angie, a local teen with an alcoholic mother, Libby faces fresh upheaval when her father participates in an unauthorized strike and Libby learns that Angie is being sexually abused by her stepfather. The story meanders slowly through a Midwestern summer, and readers will quickly forget the indistinct characters when the page is turned. Cumbie never firmly establishes a chronological setting for readers, leaving them drifting between contemporary and nostalgic small-town recollections. Given the disruptions and hardships of her life, Libby’s innocent voice appears inauthentic, especially faltering when addressing the issue of sexual abuse. Further complications arise from descriptive phrases in language too simplistic for a teenager. This slice-of-life narrative never comes fully alive, and most readers will leave it wherever they found it. (Fiction. YA)