Children's Book Review: Solace of the Road

Solace of the Road by Siobhan Dowd (David Fickling/Random House, $17.99, 9780375849718/0375849718, 272 pp., ages 14-up, October 2009)

Still haunted by images from Siobhan Dowd's debut novel, A Swift Pure Cry (Shelf Awareness, April 4, 2007), this reader continues to be impressed by the legacy of the late author. Holly Hogan, the heroine of Dowd's final novel, might well have been friends with Michelle Talent, the star of the author's first. Both young women have a keen sense of independence born of necessity. For Shell, it was due to her mother's death and her father's alcoholism. For 14-year-old Holly living in England, it's because her mother abandoned her as a small child ("She'd had to leave England in a hurry and meant to send for me, but before she could, the social services came and took me away," Holly tells herself). The book begins with the heroine on her way to Ireland to find her mother, then flashes back to the events that have led her to this point.
 
She likes Trim and Grace, the fellow "care-babes" at the Templeton House, as well as her "key worker," Miko. Miko, however, is about to leave his job, and he encourages Holly to make a go of it with Ray and Fiona Aldridge, who want to take her into their home. But one day, when Fiona tries repeatedly to get Holly to come with her shopping, "the nail bomb" goes off, the teen swears and throws things and calls Fiona "Mrs. Empty Ovary." Finally alone, Holly tries on Fiona's ash blond wig and renames herself "Solace." As Solace, the name of the lucky horse she and her Mam had bet on, the teen can be someone else entirely, older and more worldly. The day before her 15th birthday, two related incidents send Holly off on the road, where she encounters a variety of colorful characters. Dowd offers inklings that Holly knows what really happened to her ("Without the wig on, Solace was gone. I was plain old Holly Hogan again, the girl nobody wanted"), but readers will put the pieces together before she does. Still it does not make Holly's truth any less painful, even with the Aldridges so willing to accept her. Holly's situation may not be the same as theirs, but teen readers will relate to how honestly Dowd taps into the universal adolescent feelings of not being loved or understood.--Jennifer M. Brown