Sara Zarr (Once Was Lost) has been giving readers smart contemporary YA tales since her first book, National Book Award finalist Story of a Girl, and her latest novel is everything that both fans and newcomers could want. When Jill's mother starts thinking about adopting a baby, Jill figures it's just the grief talking. Both of them feel stunned by the unexpected loss of Jill's dad in a car accident, and neither of them quite knows how to help the other deal with it. But then Jill discovers that not only is her mom serious about adopting, she's bringing the teenage mother, Mandy, to live with them for the remaining weeks leading up to her delivery. Is Mandy who and what she says she is? Jill barely knows herself any more, and her world just got more complicated.
It would be so easy for Mandy and Jill to be flat or clichéd. Mandy is a pretty girl, seemingly vapid, with an awful home life--but she's also got a core of steel and a refreshing willingness to take people at face value. Jill is a hardened (and hardening) goth/punk, pushing everyone away as she struggles with loss--but she's also smart and wry, and cares more about the people around her than is maybe good for her. Zarr has a way of crafting characters that both put you on edge and become immediately familiar, and it stands her in good stead in this new novel. --Jenn Northington, events manager at WORD bookstore