No one ever asked Camille if she wanted her husband to move out.
No one ever asked Anaya if she wanted to teach a predominantly white class.
No one ever asked Jen if she wanted her daughter to have an attachment disorder.
And no one ever asked the South Fork School District kids if they wanted long bus rides.
The year had opened up with promise, but deteriorated quickly when Camille's youngest daughter used a racial slur in class, and the principal wouldn't back up Anaya because of who the girl was.
Camille's oldest daughter broke up with her boyfriend and started hanging out with a boy from South Fork and caused a different kind of racial tension.
Life sometimes stinks and for the characters in this book, life stinks a lot and there's hardly any places in the novel where it doesn't. But that doesn't mean there's no redemption in the book. There is a lot of perseverance, overcoming, and taking honest looks at what life really is.
When I opened this galley to read, I knew one thing, it was a contemporary book--that was what I wanted. I wasn't sure I wanted a book of angst, but Katie Ganshert made it work. It was hard to put down, it was hard to read, but not putting it down won out. It is a five star book, just like the rest of Katie's books. Two Thumbs Up, and a PTA room mother who gets a long look at herself and doesn't like what she sees.
Waterbrook Multnomah provided the galley for me to read and review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
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