The Names They Call Us by Emery Lord

Lucy Esther Hansson saves the day for her friend Brianna at prom but can she save her mother from cancer?

Prom night turns into the most difficult night of Lucy Esther Hansson's life. After rescuing friend Brianna who is dumped by her date at prom, Lucy and boyfriend Lukas stay to help clean up. Principal Cortez tips Lucy off when he tells her they are thinking of her mother. This immediately upsets Lucy because it reminds her of freshman year when her mother had breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy but did not require chemo or a mastectomy. Suspecting her mother might be ill again Lucy calls home and her mother confirms her worst fears. Lukas drives a devastated Lucy home. At home her mother tells Lucy that a lump was found during a check-up two weeks prior and the biopsy confirmed cancer. She is scheduled for surgery on Monday morning and that her father will be telling his congregation in the morning.

During the service, Lucy who is angry at God, decides to leave before her father informs his congregation. Lukas is shocked at Lucy's anger and her lack of faith in God. Her mother tries to reassure her. The next day, May 1st, Lucy's mom has both breasts removed and spends two days in hospital. The month of May is filled with graduation parties, exams and her mother's recovery from surgery as well as many doctors appointments and tests. The tests reveal that Lucy's mother's cancer is in her lymph nodes and that she requires six cycles of chemotherapy.

In June, before Lucy and her parents set out for their summer camp at Holyoke, Lucy's mother approaches her about the possibility of spending the summer Daybreak, the camp across the lake. Lucy's mother's friend Rhea Mills runs Daybreak, which just had a counselor quit. Her mother suggests that the camp which is for young people who have experienced trauma in their lives, would give Lucy a chance to make new friends and better help her cope with her mother's situation. Lucy refuses but her mother tells her that she needs her to go so that she will know she will be okay without her.

Lucy is thrown another curve when she meets Lukas and he tells her he wants to put their relationship "on pause". Upset that Lukas has talked with everyone but her, Lucy agrees. Lukas wants to "reassess" their relationship when he comes to visit her at Holyoke in July.

Lucy arrives at Holyoke and meets Rhea who shows her to Cabin 3A where she will be staying with nine campers and two other counsellors. Anna Miroslaw, one of the counsellors gives Lucy a tour of the camp and introduces her to counsellors, Henry Jones, Mohan Tambe, Keely Simmons and Garcia. When a fight breaks out between two campers, Lucy feels overwhelmed and has an asthma attack, but Anna reassures her, telling her that feeling overwhelmed is common.

From the beginning Lucy finds herself attracted to Jones, a tall, dark-skinned counsellor with a big smile. They find an immediate connection because like Lucy, Jones is a musician, he plays trumpet. Jones draws Lucy into the his group and also helps her fit in by having her accompany the kids choir for the talent show. Lucy gradually begins to become part of the group, accompanying Anna, Simmons, Tambe and Jones on their Friday night parties, saving Neveah who has an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Lucy discovers that these counsellors have been at Daybreak for several years.

But as the weeks pass, Lucy begins to form friendships that help her understand life and resilience of the human spirit. Daybreak is full of secrets and secret wisdom that help Lucy cope with this stressful time in her life.

Discussion

The Names They Call Us is about a young girl's journey to come to terms with her mother's illness in the midst of growing into adulthood. Lord who breaks her story into four parts, spanning from April to August, has populated her story with a cast of very diverse characters; transgender Anna Miroslaw, dark-skinned Jones and Rhea, Rose Min who is Asian, pregnant fourteen-year-old Tara and a host of characters from various backgrounds.

Lucy, daughter of a pastor, staunch Christian and an accomplished pianist and captain of the swim team, experiences two stressful events just before the beginning of summer; her mother's cancer has returned and her long-time boyfriend Lukas decides to take a break from their relationship. The return of her mother's cancer creates a severe crisis of faith for Lucy.  She begins struggling with her faith because she believed that if she prayed to God he would heal her mother. Instead her mother is ill again and she sees God has having broken his end of the bargain. "I prayed while scrubbing dishes after dinner. I prayed with every stroke, back and forth, back and forth, down my swim lane. I prayed while walking between classes...I should have begged." In the bathroom she questions, "...I think up at God: We had a deal. How could you? How could you?"

Lucy feels completely betrayed by God. She has been praying in thanksgiving all the time, for her parents, for Lukas and her Aunt Rachel. At church the Sunday after she learns of her mother's relapse, Lucy finds she doubts Psalm 46: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. "Really, God? Where? I mean, seriously. Give me a dove with white flapping wings. A rainbow stretched over our house. Give me literally anything -- a feeling, a holy light, a burning bush..." Lucy looks at the statue of Jesus Christ above the altar and feels betrayed and alone. "He stands on the altar, stone arms wide and ivory palms up--a pose that used to look welcoming. Now He looks halfway to a shrug. Your mom has cancer again and there's nothing you can do about it. He's right. I feel helpless, hapless, planless."

This results in Lucy running out of church and when confronted by Lukas, she tells him, "I trusted God would heal my mom, and He did. Except He didn't." She finds Lukas's attitude patronizing because he doesn't have a sick mother. Lucy finds herself questioning everything about God. When Lucy's mother asks her to attend Daybreak, Lucy tells her mother that she needs to be around Christian kids, but her mother counters that faith isn't caught from other people. Lucy finds herself "hurt and confused by a God that has never hurt or confused me before."

When she visits Holyoke after her first week at the Daybreak camp, Lucy marvels at the faith of the young people there. "...I'm jealous --disgustingly, hotly jealous. My heart aches like the sore muscle it is. I covet their innocence, their easy belief. They trust the world; they trust God. They see him everywhere. Like I did, my whole life, and I didn't even know to appreciate how good I had it." Lucy puzzles over her mother's choice to read the book of Psalms, about praising and glorifying God when she is so sick. She also attempts to have her mother allow her to return to Holyoke for the rest of the summer. Lucy mentions the pregnant fourteen-year-old and is shocked when her mother expresses her wish that Lucy make her feel loved and supported. Lucy's parents have always taught her to wait until marriage for sex, and she can't understand her mother's disappointment with Lucy being scandalized by the young girl's situation. However Lucy's visit ends with her trying to see traces of God in everything, just as her father mentioned in his sermon.

At camp Lucy finds herself still talking to God. She asks Him to help her be a good friend to Anna who it turns out is transgender. As she begins to learn the stories of the campers and the counsellors Lucy begins to feel gratitude for what she has - two parents who love her. "I've been so angry-- at God and the universe and cancer--that I think it's been hard to touch gratitude. That my mom can get treatment, that we have a support system, that I was born into such love."

From Henry though, Lucy learns the most. Henry lost his sister who committed suicide when he was ten years old. Despite being angry at God, Henry decided to chose to believe in Him. Lucy wonders if she too can choose to have faith. Over the next few days Lucy finds some measure of peace, "When I try to pray, I don't feel like a crazy person talking to a man in the sky. It feels like me choosing to ask the God I've always known for guidance. Even if one of my prayers is 'Please help me stop being so mad at You.' "

From her friends, Lucy learns how to cope with her mother's cancer and rediscovers her own faith. From Henry, Lucy learns that real life is not an escape from trouble and that one cannot live in a bubble. Daybreak demonstrates to Lucy how people go on living in spite of terrible things that happen. "Hasn't Daybreak shown me, day after day, that people can outlast unbelievable pain? That human hearts are like noble little ants, able to carry so much more weight than you'd expect. Hasn't my mom shown me that, every day of my life?" Keely tells Lucy, "You can be okay again. Just a different kind of okay than before." The Daybreak counsellors and campers are proof that people can survive terrible things and still have a good life.

By the end of the novel Lucy chooses to believe in a God that forgives people in a moment of despair and anger. "If I'm going to believe, it has to be in a God who would forgive my father for this word. I have to believe in a God who knows how much my father loves my mother. I have to believe in a God who would sit beside my father in that car, place His hand on my father's back. And maybe it took me until now--until this terrible moment-- to realize, but I do."

The Names They Call Us is a novel that explores a whole host of themes besides faith; that of friendship, family, how to cope with serious illness, loss of a loved one,  and forgiveness. In some ways the novel takes on too much. There are several subplots; Lucy and Lukas, Lucy and her new relationship with Henry, and the secret past of her mother that Lucy uncovers at Daybreak in the midst of a medical crisis. The novel takes its title from the names people give others when they sometimes speak without thinking. For example, when Lucy's mom asks her to consider going to Daybreak Lucy refers to the camp as "the hippie camp". As Anna gives Lucy a tour around Daybreak, she refers to the Christian camp Holyoke as "It's some crazy church camp..." Lucy says nothing to counter Anna's remark because "It's just that...telling people you're religious can make them assume a whole list of things about you."

Overall a very modern take on faith in the contemporary genre of realistic, young adult fiction.

Book Details:

The Names They Call Us by Emery Lord
New York: Bloomsbury                       2017
388 pp.

Sing by Vivi Greene

Singer Lily Ross gets dumped by her boyfriend, Jed Munroe in a restaurant. Lily met Jed at a party at her manager's Brooklyn loft only a year ago. She had moved to New York from L.A. after her break-up with Caleb. Before Caleb there was Sebastian. Jed is also a musician and their lives seemed to fit together perfectly. Instead, Jed tells her the pressure's getting to him and he takes off, leaving Lily a wreck.

Sammy, Lily's best friend since preschool, and Tess a friend Lily made at camp when she was twelve, are there to help Lily pick up the pieces. Now besides being her friends, they are Lily's paid assistants. Tess suggests they leave the city and spend the summer at her family's cottage on Penobscot Bay.

At first Lily declines, but when she goes into a coffee shop with her bodyguard, Ray and is mobbed with questions about Jed, Lily decides to take up Tess's offer. At the cottage Lily receives a frantic call from her manager, Terry who's concerned about all the negative publicity from her break-up with Jed. Her fall tour, Forever, which is based on songs about her relationship with Jed is ready to go, as is her first song off her new album.

The first few days are wonderful until Lily reads about the breakup in the newspapers and discovers that Jed has talked to reporters. On a trip into town, Lily gets into a fender bender with a local - a handsome man driving a pickup truck. She meets the same guy again the following Saturday when Tess takes Lily and Sammy to meet with a bunch of guys she used to hang out with, to go fishing. That guy is Noel Bradley who takes the group out on his fishing boat where they spend the morning hauling in lobster traps. On the boat Noel and Lily become interested in one another. Meanwhile Lily decides not to respond to the texts from Jed.  A night swim leads her to fall asleep on the beach only to be awoken in the morning by Noel walking his dog, Murphy. They talk and Noel tells Lily that he attended college but returned to town where he lives with his father and his younger sister.

After Noel suggests they "hang out" sometime, Lily arranges a secret meeting at night because she doesn't want Tess or Sammy to realize that she's become involved with yet another guy. Noel takes her for a hike and they swim in a nearby pond. Around a campfire, Lily confesses to not being able to write new songs and Noel tells Lily about his mother whom he says is a painter and who abandoned them. On another secret night out, while hauling lobster traps out of the water, Noel tells Lily he was studying art at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design but that he came home. After this night out Lily writes her first new song about beginning a new day and being hopeful rather than about broken relationships and lost love.

Lily soon has several new songs composed: her first one is titled Anchors. After the July 4th holiday, Lily's relationship with Noel begins to intensify. Terry contacts Lily and is relieved to learn that she has composed a number of new songs. Lily suggests they record at Tess's house and Terry reluctantly agrees. Terry wants to know who the "anchor" is but Lily, not wanting to reveal that the song is about Noel, simply tells him it is about the island. However with all of Lily's crew on the island working on the recordings, Noel feels unsettled and unsure of his place in her life. Can Lily and Noel make it work or will their vastly different lives be too much to overcome? Will Lily be forced to choose between her love for Noel and her love of making music?

Discussion

Sing is a novel whose plot draws comparison to country singer- turned pop star, Taylor Swift, whose songs are frequently about previous relationships and breakups. Sing's cover even suggests Taylor Swift  with its look-a-like portrait, complete with blonde hair and pouty red lips. In this version, the famous pop star is fictional Lily Ross whose career has been made by writing songs about her breakups. She's been with a number of men over the years and her latest love, Jed Munroe also a famous singer, has just dumped her. Hoping to find a bit of peace, Lily decamps to her friend Tess's cottage on an island where she quickly falls in love with the best looking guy in town, Noel Bradley. 

Noel is a rugged artist with a soft heart, who has returned to his family's home to care for his younger sister and his father after their mother was placed in rehab for doing drugs. Greene brings in the love triangle when Jed visits the town to try to win back Lily setting up a conflict that Lily must deal with. Which life does she choose and will Lily Ross ever find happiness and true love?

Lily Ross is a mostly likeable character but she's predictably self-centered and even somewhat shallow. Her friends take her to task when it's discovered she's been having a secret relationship with Noel Bradley and lying to them. Tess in particular feels betrayed because she considers herself Lily's friend, "the only people who don't kiss your ass and tell you what you want to hear all the time." Tess tells Lily that she's not ready for another relationship so soon after her breakup.

The reappearance of Jed Munroe in her life leaves Lily intensely conflicted. She struggles with the discovery that part of her still loves Jed. "I love the way he knows what he wants and doesn't apologize for being who he is. I love our life together, how seamless and complementary it can be." With regard to Noel, Lily feels that she is making the same mistake once again. But Maya who runs a yoga class on the island tells Lily that she's waiting for her life to be easier. When Lily tells Jed she won't be getting back together with him, he tells her she'll never be happy. However, Lily knows she has at least broken the cycle of her music being all about breakups. She also knows that music must remain a part of her life. "No matter how much I try to make things work with Noel, no matter how much I love being here on this island, could I ever truly be happy without making my music, seeing my fans, singing my songs on tour? I can't just pretend that's not a part of me anymore."

At first the solution seems to be to have Noel accompany her on tour, because Lily doesn't want to feel the pain of loss when she leaves Noel behind on the island. When Lily reveals Noel's identity during an interview, the paparazzi arrive, and then the truth about his mother is made public, Lily begins to realize just how different their lives are. Lily's mother reminds her of the value of sharing her music with others and that this is something special. 

Lily and Noel repair their relationship and Lily tells him that her time on the island has not been a waste - that she has discovered that her music allows her to connect with others. "My songs are the way I've always made sense of the world, the mistakes I've made, the people I've met and what they've taught me. I'm not done with any of that. I don't know that I ever will be." Lily comes to realize that life isn't full of "perfect, happy endings" but that people do go on, just as she will without Jed and without Noel.
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Perhaps unwittingly Greene has written a novel that portrays the reality of the current dating culture for many women in the 21st century: meet a man, live with him and then break-up with no sign of commitment or marriage, a year or two or more of life wasted and a broken heart.  Although the characters in this story are supposedly famous contemporary musicians, the relationships in their lives and the modern problems they face are very much similar to those of everyday people. Their relationships, although subject to the pressures of fame, parallel the patterns seen within society in general today. Many women go through similar experiences of dating for a few weeks/months, then living together without moving towards any sort of commitment. That this can be harmful to women whose hearts and bodies are made for something much different is effectively demonstrated in Sing. When Jed dumps Lily, she looks at the keys to her apartment which Jed just handed back to her she states, "...and when I think about how many times I've done this, handed over my heart, the keys to my home, to my world, I feel dizzy. Over and over again --it's not enough. I'm not enough. "  Lily believes the reason her relationships crash is because she's the problem but by the end of the novel her friendship with Noel has helped her rediscover who she is and that she can be happy in life.

For fans of contemporary romance and singers like Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez, Sing will resonate with them and be an enjoyable, fun read.

Book Details:

Sing by Vivi Greene
New York: HarperTeen   2016
279 pp.

Galgorithm by Aaron Karo

"The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost."

Galgorithm is a romantic comedy about a high school student who spends his senior year as a dating coach only to see it backfire in a way he never expected.

On the outside seventeen year old Shane Chambliss is a typical senior at Kingsview High School in Los Angeles. But on the inside he's much more; he's a guy who knows how girls think and act. He's spent the last few years carefully studying interactions between the guys and girls in his high school and has come up with a system to help guys succeed in the dating game. He calls his formula, which outlines the laws of attraction as the Galgorithm because Shane's father refers to women as "gals". The Galgorithm is top secret.

Shane's best friend is a black girl, Jennifer Annabelle Kalkland, better known as Jak whom he's known her since they were young enough to share a bath. Their moms are best friends.  Jak knows that Shane helps a few guys get dates with girls but she does not know about the Galgorithm because Shane is scared she will judge him. They have both been accepted for college in the fall but will be a thousand miles away from each other, something that causes Shane to be anxious about. "I probably won't miss all her antics when we go away to school, but I'll definitely miss her Jakness - her quick draw with a joke, her oddly endearing anxieties, her energy."

One of Shane's clients is Reed Wannamaker, a skinny junior whose desperate to date Marisol Cuellar. Shane encourages Reed to follow through on his initial contact with Marisol. Reed decided that in order to follow the first of Shane's rules which is to be different, he would hit Marisol with a tennis ball during gym class, providing him with the chance to go up and talk to her. This worked better than he anticipated because Harrison Fisk, a senior who is the starting pitcher for the baseball team punched Reed in the face. Marisol accepted Reed's friend request.

One of Shane's success stories is Anthony McGuinness and Brooke Nast, also known as Hedgehog and Balloon. They've been dating for six months after Shane helped Anthony who had been crushing on Brooke since fifth grade to finally get together with her. Now they want to set up Shane with Tristan Kellog, the It girl from the junior class. But Shane is still recovering from his break-up with a girl two years older than himself whom he calls Voldemort.

However Shane finds himself advising Mr. Kimbrough, the grade ten math teacher. In his early thirties, Kimbrough tells Shane he's heard that he is an expert in dating and romance and that he's noticed Shane advising Adam Foster. Shane in fact did help Adam start to date Olivia Reyes. He also tells Shane he's heard about an algorithm. While Shane tells Mr. Kimbrough he's not a dating expert he does agree to help him.Kimbrough indicates that he is crushing on Deb Solomon, a history teacher, whom he considers to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Shane advised Mr. Kimbrough to trick Miss Solomon into believing he is asking numerous teachers if they want to attend a Civil War exhibit.

Shane tells Jak about Hedgehog and Balloon setting him up with Tristen Kellog and she agrees that he should date Tristen. His initial impression of Tristen who's very pretty is that she might not have much substance to her. But he quickly discovers that she's leading a Habitat for Humanity trip to the Midwest to build homes for those who lost them due to tornadoes.

While Shane continues to advise Mr. Kimbrough and Reed and help Adam deal with being dumped by Olivia, he also struggles to cope with dating Tristen. In order to  help Adam out of his funk, Shane tells Adam to "find that girl you have a crush on, go right up to her, and do your thing."  However, one day when Shane and Jak are at lunch, Shane is stunned to see Adam making a move on Jak. He realizes that Adam is using the galgorithm on his best friend. Although he tries to seem noncommittal, Shane tries "to push any uneasiness...deep, deep down, as far as it will go."

The next day Shane runs into Adam at Perkin's Beanery waiting for Jak to show up. It turns out both guys are waiting to meet Jak and Shane realizes that Jak asked him to show up later in case she needed to bail from her date with Adam. Shane is peeved that Adam didn't tell him about crushing on Jak but he behaves diplomatically and leaves the two of them However, he does recognize Jak's disappointment while he realizes that Adam is a lucky guy dating Jak. Even though Shane and Tristen are now an "item" Shane can't quite get used to his best friend seeing another guy. It isn't until Shane rescues a very drunk Jak from her first keg party that he begins to realize that he has "feelings" for her.

Discussion

Galgorithm is a fun summer read about the hazards of friendship, dating and falling in love. The focus is on the main character, Shane Chambliss who fancies himself as a sort of expert in interactions between guys and gals,"the Robin Hood of romance" who evens "the playing field between the jocks and the have-nots." In order to give teen guys a dose of confidence he tells them he has worked out an algorithm that predicts the behaviour of girls. In fact, the "galgorithm" as he calls it, is fictitious, as he reveals later on in the novel. His system seems to be working until Mr. Kimbrough publishes his own "galgorithm" on his blog and it is discovered by one of the students. The resulting chaos sees relationships crash as the female half of all the couples believe they have been manipulated. Eventually though some of the couples like Hedgehog and Balloon come to realize that it's not so much about how they got together but that they are together. It's the message Shane's parents were trying to impart to him when they finally told him the truth about how they met. They met in an unromantic way and felt they had to create a different story for how they fell in love. It's a lesson Shane himself will soon experience with Jak.

Set against Shane's sometimes hilarious narration is his gradual realization that he has fallen for his best friend. This realization brings both terror and dismay because of Jak's response after his break up with Faith years ago made Jak insist they would never get involved romantically. "In the wake of Voldemort, Jak told me explicitly that this was a line she would not cross. We will never be more than friends. She's been consistent about that point ever since."

This leaves Shane deeply conflicted especially after his feelings for Jak persist even when she's at her worst, vomiting on him in the bathtub after the keg party. "I thought that maybe I just had a moment of weakness in the bathtub. Maybe I was just a little buzzed. But when I woke up the next morning, my feelings for Jak, whatever they are, were still there. I don't really know what they mean and I don't even know if they're real." Compounding his confusion is his relationship with Tristen, who is very understanding and finds Shane to be "sweet" and "loyal". Shane knows after his break-up with Faith that he's been guarding his heart but now he wonders, "But what if, in the course of protecting myself, in the course of finding other people their soul mates, I miss the real thing?"

It takes other people to confirm to Shane what he feels - his ex-girlfriend, Faith who tells him he was so obviously in love with Jak, Adam who recognized that Shane loved Jak and backed off, and Reed who tells him "I've never seen two 'friends' who more obviously want to hook up." Shane is only certain of his feelings after he is in danger of losing Jak for good. Reed who decides to take over Shane's role as dating coach, gives Shane a dose of his own advice, be different, notice her, tell her.

Galgorithm is appealing because it's a story about a group of high school students trying to navigate the treacherously fickle world of teenage dating. Karo describes the high school scene with a certain flair, making it realistic in some ways yet over the top in others. (How many teachers come to a senior guy for dating advice?)  There is a whole cast of very different characters in the novel from Shane the sensitive, caring guy, Jak the irreverant witty best friend,  Harrison the jock struggling to cope with the bullying his two moms have experienced, Tristen the gorgeous, sexy junior who actually does have a personality, timid Mr. Kimbrough the bumbling math teacher who has the hots for Miss Solomon and Reed the skinny Dungeons and Dragons geek.The typical teenage boy humour will have readers laughing out loud while leaving them groaning at Mr. Kimbrough's math jokes.

Galgorithm is Karo's second young adult novel. Besides being an author and screenwriter, it comes as no surprise that Karo is also a comedian.


Book Details:

Galgorithm by Aaron Karo
New York: Simon Pulse 2015
310 pp.

On The Fence by Kasie West

On The Fence is a poignant coming-of-age story about a girl growing into womanhood  who struggles to remember the mother she misses and to unravel her deepening feelings for the boy next door.

Charlotte (Charlie)Reynolds is sixteen years old and lives with her policeman father and her three brothers, Jerom, Nathan and Gage. Her neighbour, Braden Lewis is almost always at her home so he too is like a fourth brother to Charlie. Charlie is tomboy, keen about sports and involved in running, soccer and basketball and roughhousing with her brothers. Her mother died when she was six and Charlie has few precious memories of her. Now a teenager, Charlie finds she misses having a mother around to guide her through the ins and outs of dating, boys and makeup.

When Charlie acquires a second speeding ticket, her dad insists she get a job to pay him back for the tickets and as insurance against any future tickets. Charlie doesn't want to work, but with the help of her brother Gage, she manages to get hired on by Linda who owns a clothing store, Linda's Bazaar. Linda is an earthy woman whose motherly concern for Charlie manifests itself in helping Charlie purchase suitable clothing for working in the boutique. Charlie has to wear something other than her typical t-shirt, jeans and beat up sneakers.

Lately the nightmares about her mother have returned and when she can't sleep, Charlie decides to go sit out in the backyard by the fence. For the past four years, Charlie has found that running before bed made her tired enough to sleep through the night, helping to avoid the recurring nightmares. But lately running hasn't worked. One night in her backyard she witnesses Braden's father coming home drunk, yelling at Braden and his mom. Upset at what she's witnessed, Charlie talks to Braden through their shared fence. Soon they find themselves meeting frequently in the middle of the night, Charlie on her side of the fence, Braden on his side. They talk about Braden's family problems and Charlie's life. Charlie challenges Braden to a game to see who knows more about the other.

Meanwhile Charlie begins to enjoy her job at Linda's. She finds Linda to be a kind manager who encourages her. However, when Linda makes a general remark about Charlie's mother, instead of telling Linda that her mother died, Charlie acts as though her mother is still alive. This little lie unsettles Charlie, but she's tired of being pitied when people ask. When a girl drops off ads for make up demos at the store, Linda suggests that Charlie sign up to be a makeup model. Charlie agrees to do this, forging her dead mother's signature on the permission paper. Unable to sleep after doing this, Charlie meets Braden at the fence in the middle of the night confessing her guilt over what she's done in a sort of general way.

The make up demo goes well, with Amber doing basic makeup of Charlie's face. Amber's friendly and chatty, which makes the session pass easily. Charlie who was dreading the session because she is completely out of her league when it comes to girly things, finds it not quite so bad. When she discovers how much money she can make from just one session Charlie agrees to do a second one.

Gradually Charlie begins to realize that she's falling in love with Braden, but he doesn't seem to reciprocate her feelings. Charlie can't stop the way she feels but she knows she has to. "I needed to stop the way my body was reacting to Braden lately. We were friends. Too close to ever want to explore these stupid new reactions and risk losing him forever."

Charlie meets a new guy, Evan, when she's out with Amber and her friends after the second make-up session. When Evan, who in Charlie's eyes is "hot and nice" learns she is heavily involved in sports, he invites her to come with him to see an Oakland Athletics baseball game. It's supposed to be a double date but Charlie knows she can't invite Braden because Amber and her new guy, Dustin will likely come with them.

Things between Charlie and Braden become strained when one night Charlie thinks he's going to tell her that he has feelings for her but instead Braden tells her that he wanted to talk about something very different. Embarrassed and humiliated Charlie leaves. "Of course, Braden didn't like me like that. I was his buddy, his pal, his sister. A burly girl who played sports. The only way a guy would ever like me was with a thick layer of makeup."

This seems to make things easier for Charlie to date Evan because she assumes that Braden simply views her as one of the guys and not a girl who could be a potential girlfriend/date. But when Braden fills in for Amber's date who falls ill, his behaviour seems to suggest that he is jealous. Evan doesn't know Charlie very well but assumes she is like other girls, clueless about sports, especially baseball and into nice clothes and makeup. Braden tells Charlie that he's not the right person for her since she can't be herself around him. Charlie knows she's faking it but maybe this is what she has to do to get a guy interested. These mixed feelings make it hard for Charlie to cope with having Braden around and she wonders how do you stay friends with someone you've fallen for?

Discussion  

On The Fence is a sweet story that touches on the themes of identity, honesty and first love, all of which are interconnected. Charlie has always been seen as "one of the guys" but she begins to wonder if that means guys aren't attracted to her. Does she have to change who she is to get a date and should she? She becomes aware of this when she goes to Woodward Park to play disc golf with her brothers and they find a girl's lost Frisbee with her contact information on it. While her older brother Jerom thinks it's "hot" that a girl plays disc golf, Gage says, " 'I don't know. A girl who plays disc golf? She's probably a dog. Some aggressive, burly thing.' The guys laughed...Maybe that's how they saw me. Maybe that's how most guys saw me."

Later on as Charlie begins dating Evan she feels that she must be a different kind of girl than who she is - one who wears makeup and different clothing, who doesn't know about baseball and definitely someone who doesn't play tackle football with the guys. When Braden sees Charlie behaving differently around Evan he tells her "If you can't be yourself around him, then you shouldn't be dating him." But Charlie challenges Braden, asking him how many of the guys they know have raced to ask her out. "If they want someone to date, they go to the mall or the club and find a girl who wears tight clothes and does her nails and giggles at their jokes.... Guys don't want a competitor, they want a cheerleader." Seeing Charlie sitting out a tackle football game, Braden again reminds her, "You don't have to change for a guy," telling her that by compromising, she isn't showing Evan the real Charlie.

Charlie's dishonesty with Evan is mirrored in her other relationships with Linda whom she lied to about her mother. Charlie's struggle to find her own identity and to accept it comes to a head when her lies to Linda are revealed, causing Linda disappointment and hurt and bringing down the wrath of her father.  Charlie feels guilt because she knows Linda understands her and is able to help her understand herself and she recognizes she needs someone like this in her life as the men around her cannot provide this much needed insight. Charlie reveals to her father why she lied about her mother's death and asks  him to explain what happened to her mother. She learns that her father and brothers were trying to protect her from the truth of her mother's death, but in doing so they prevented Charlie from coming to terms with her death and healing.

By the end of the novel, Charlie comes to a sort of self-acceptance which allows her to tell both Evan and Braden the truth. She also accepts that her athleticism is a good thing but that she also might want to be open to stepping out of her comfort zone and using a bit of makeup for special occasions. Things like makeup and nice dresses don't make her anything less than who she is. They don't take away her identity.

Charlie is a believable character, and West does a great job filling in her character as the story progresses. Like many sixteen-year-old girls, she's just figuring herself out, what her strengths are, how to navigate the world of boys and relationships, how to deal with uncomfortable conversations and coming to terms with a family tragedy that happened ten years earlier. She is also realistic in that many girls drop out of sports in their teen years because they believe this makes them unattractive to boys. Fortunately, this view is beginning to change. 

On The Fence is a gentle romance and coming of age story that will appeal to many readers. Kasie West has placed another great read on the bookshelf.

Book Details:
On The Fence by Kasie West
New York: HarperCollins Children's Books    2014
293 pp.

Paige Turned by Erynn Mangum

Paige Alder has been working for two months now as a Youth Minister with Pastor Rick at their church. After Tyler saw Layla's brother, Luke, who is Paige's ex-boyfriend, kiss her at the end-of-the-school year youth party, things have been decidedly cool between them. At first Paige is certain that Luke's kiss is the cause of Tyler's lack of interest and the fact that they haven't seen each other for most of the summer. With the exception of the youth karaoke picnic where Tyler grabbed Paige and they sang, Tyler has been mostly absent and distant.

During Paige's week off, her best friend Layla who is stressing about her upcoming wedding, decides to get a puppy. Layla's brother Luke, shows us at the animal shelter and Paige finally has the courage to confront Luke and tell him that while she forgives him for what happened between them, she is not interested in pursuing a relationship and that he is messing up what she has with Tyler.

As both Layla and Paige's sister, Preslee prepare for their upcoming fall weddings, Paige tries to help both young women. At the same time she becomes increasingly worried about Tyler until one night Tyler and Pastor Rick talk together. It is after this that Tyler confesses to Paige that he did not lead a good life before he became a Christian and this is why he has taken things slowly.

From this point on, Tyler and Paige begin to fall in love against the backdrop of two other couples planning very different weddings. But will their relationship lead to a trip down the aisle?

Paige Turned is a light feel-good conclusion to the Paige Alder series. Readers will not be surprised by the sweet, predictable conclusion to the series. It's nice to see a series of novels where the characters focus on becoming friends first and trying to determine if each has a good character and might be someone suitable to spend the rest of life with. It was refreshing to see Paige finally confront Luke and tell him how she felt and that in this case, it was too late for a second chance.

There was one thing I didn't like about Paige and Tyler's relationship. His question at the end seemed too soon and too sudden, given that Tyler only asked Paige to be his girlfriend at the beginning of the summer and it's now October. They did not date over the summer because of Tyler struggling to tell Paige about his past - a past he never fully reveals to her.

I also wasn't keen on the language used to describe a very important aspect of Paige and Tyler's relationship which the author brings up. When Tyler reveals that he has a past before he was Christian and that he has made mistakes,  Paige spends a large portion of the novel working on "forgiving" Tyler for his sin involving his past relationships. I didn't like this notion of Paige having to "forgive" Tyler. Eventually this evolves into the more realistic concept of Paige needing to accept Tyler, despite the mistakes of his past and to realize that just because he's now come to Jesus does not mean that he won't make mistakes in the future.  The same applies to Paige's relationship with her sister Preslee, who also made mistakes as a young person. Paige has had to forgive Preslee for the hurt she cause her and her parents and to realize that Preslee is a work in progress. While it takes time for her to get to this point, in the end Paige does so, with the realization that she too has a past.

As a result, in Paige Turned, the relationships feel real and the characters are decidedly authentic. Paige has the support of her pastor and married friend to help her live a chaste single life and Tyler is respectful and honourable, always looking on the bright side of life. While Paige comes from a stable, intact family, Tyler's family has suffered from divorce. His mother, a somewhat stereotypical divorcee, is bitter and critical, the complete opposite of Paige's kind, warm mom. It felt refreshing to see a strong Christian  not reject someone outright because their family has suffered from divorce. Paige accepts Tyler on the basis of his good character and the respectful way he treats her.

There's plenty of wit to go around, and Paige Turned is a light, refreshing romance that avoids heavy discussions about sin, sex, dating and marriage. The message comes across clear; people can and do date without focusing on sex, intent on saving themselves for marriage and they are normal, happy people!

Book Details:
Paige Turned by Erynn Mangum
Colorado Springs:  NaviPress    2014
286 pp.

Unbreak My Heart by Melissa Walker

Sixteen year old Clementine Williams has done something unforgivable and she's hoping her family's summer cruise will help her forget the terrible end to her sophomore year.

Clementine along with her parents and her ten year old sister, Olive, are sailing part of what is known as "The Loop" in their new forty-two foot Catalina three-cabin Pullman named The Possibility. This is a sailing route that encompasses the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River down to Gulf, across to Florida and up the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

Clem's family doesn't know what exactly has happened to her in the last two weeks of school, but they know that Clem is upset and withdrawn. As their sailing voyage begins, her family tries to help Clem by encouraging her to be with her family. On their stop at the marina in Peoria, Clem is sent to get groceries. At the marina shop she collides with a tall, blue-eyed, redhead boy named James Townsend causing him to spill his basket of bananas. They have a brief, humorous conversation but Clem resolves not to get involved with him. She also meets an elderly couple at this marina, named Ruth and George. These three people end up helping Clem work through what has happened to her.

Clem's narrative alternates between describing what is currently happening in her life as her family sails part of The Loop, and flashbacks of what happened between her and her best friend, Amanda during her sophomore year at Bishop Heights High School. Readers will quickly guess that the trouble involved a boy named Ethan.

Clem believes that because of what she has done, she is a bad person and that no one will ever like her. Because of her fear of how others will judge her, at first Clem decides she will not do anything to encourage James. However this doesn't really work because Clem and James' parents form a friendship that results in the two families spending a lot of time together as they both sail the Loop. But both Clem and James are keeping secrets, Clem about what happened between her and Amanda, and James about his family.

As Clem's relationship with James develops, she begins to put into perspective what happened, to evaluate the meaning of friendship, and also to realize that she is not the only one to blame for what happened.

Discussion  

Unbreak My Heart is about one girl's journey to self-forgiveness and about dealing with the mistakes of  youth. Various characters give their perspective on what happened between Clem and Amanda and readers ultimately have to decide how they feel about what happened. Clem also considers the reality of her friendship with Amanda, how it is changing as they approach college, and how this might have affected Amanda.

The true strength of this novel is in the characters and their relationships with one another. Young adult literature is often plagued by what is known as the "parent problem" where a young person is left to fend for themselves because mom and/or dad are experiencing serious problems or absent. Walker doesn't take this approach however, instead opting to give her young protagonist a caring family who are willing to support her and show her unconditional love through a troubled period in her life. Clem's parents are willing to give her space and time to work through whatever is bothering her and they don't pry.

Clem's younger sister, Olive is an endearing character, who looks up to Clem and helps her put things in perspective. Clem describes Olive as her "family's little adult", having an attitude and the insight of a much older person. Olive serves to remind Clem of her good points and why she is not a bad person. And in fact the way Clem treats her much younger sister is proof that she is not a bad person. She is kind to her and lets her hang out with her when her friendship with James begins.

The relationship Clem has with James is very different from what she had with Ethan. James is upbeat, kind and more sensitive as to how Clem feels. He recognizes that Clem is deeply saddened by something and it surprises Clem when she discovers that he knows this about her. Ethan, on the other hand, never seemed to clue into how Clem was feeling or if he did, he ignored them.

One drawback of this novel is the message conveyed through the elderly couple, Ruth and George. Clem assumes that they have been married for years only to learn that George left his wife of 30 years to be with Ruth  because "it was meant to be". Ruth tells Clem and Olive that their relationship is "true love" implying that only "true love" matters, and that the vows we make to one another can be discarded, making them in effect, pointless. Ruth dishonours George's wife, Linda, by calling her his "girlfriend" rather than acknowledging that Linda was in fact, his wife of 30 years. At the end of all this, young, impressionable Olive concludes that none of this matters, as long as they are happy together. It is a sad dismissal of the value of fidelity and the promise to love even when the desire to do so is no longer easy to come by.

Overall, Unbreak My Heart is an engaging read that draws the reader in from the very beginning through the desire to learn what really happened between Clem and Amanda. Well written and evenly paced, this is a very good story.

Book Details:
Unbreak My Heart by Melissa Walker
New York: Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers   2012
231 pp.