A "gap year" is time taken off after completion of secondary education and before beginning higher education. It's best when parents and child both agree on the time-honored practice, but that's not the case for the Lightsey family in Sarah Bird's latest novel. Cam Lightsey is busily buying extra pillows for daughter Aubrey to take to college, while Aubrey has no intention of going. (Cam's ex and Aubrey's father, Martin, has been absent for years, in a religious cult.)
Free-spirited Cam moved to the 'burbs so Aubrey could get a better education, but as a proud lactation consultant, she doesn't fit with the local ladies who lunch. Fortunately, her daughter has been the proverbial "good kid," grinding out top grades and staying out of trouble.
Unbeknownst to Cam, Aubrey has had it with her straight-edge ways. She is sick of being a band geek and waiting for "real life" to begin. On a stupefyingly hot day at band practice, Aubrey faints en route to get water and is revived by the quarterback hero--on whom she then vomits. He is Tyler Moldenhauer, and he's interested in her. Then, just as Aubrey believes "real life" is beginning, her long-lost father contacts her on Facebook and "real life" kicks into high gear.
Bird (The Boyfriend School) does a masterful job of telling us just enough about Tyler, Cam's worries, Aubrey's self-discovery and her father to keep us wondering. Martin, the wild card, returns; Aubrey disappears on the day she is supposed to leave for college, and through chapters narrated alternately by mother and daughter, the story of an unusual senior year unfolds. --Valerie Ryan