Friend, Natasha. Where You’ll Find Me.

Friend, Natasha.  Where You’ll Find Me.  Macmillan/Farrar Strauss  2016 264p  $16.99  ISBN 978-0-374-30230-6  ms/hs  Realistic Fiction  VG-BN     

Anna’s parents only split up a year ago, yet her dad is already remarried (to a 24-year-old named Marnie) and has a new baby. When Anna’s mother’s depression spirals out of control and she attempt to take her own life, Anna (who found her mother that way) is forced to live with her dad, Marnie, and baby Jane. Her best friend, Dani, has dumped her to hang out with the popular crowd, and Anna just can’t bring herself to talk about her mom. All she wants is for things to go back to the way they were. She is forced to sit at the weirdo table at lunch and can’t talk to her dad. As the weeks go by, and her mother’s diagnosis is corrected, things start to take a turn for the better. Maybe the “weirdos” are actually really nice girls who bring Anna out of her shell. Maybe her mom really needed help and can’t be the mom she needs right now. And maybe Marnie can be a real friend to Anna, and can help Anna and her dad reconnect. This book is a solid read and relatable for anyone who has suffered with mental illness or had a family member who has done so. Everything does not turn out the way a fairy tale would, but very realistically instead, and Anna is able to discover who she is and what she can contribute to the world. There is some rough language, so keep this in upper middle schools and high schools. Overall, it would be a great addition to any library.

Summary: Anna is suddenly living with her dad, her new 24-year-old stepmother and a half sister, baby Jane, after finding her mom passed out next to a bottle of pills. To make things worse, her best friend since kindergarten has dumped her for the popular crowd, and Anna is stuck at the weirdo table at lunch. Can the new year bring positive changes?
     

Mental illness-Fiction, Divorce-Fiction               --Erin Daley

Paint Me A Monster

Baskin, Janie.  Paint Me A Monster.  Enslow     2014  352p  $18.95  ISBN 978-1-62324-018-9  hs  Historical fiction  VG-BN

Belonging to a seemingly picture-perfect family, Rinnie (nicknamed after the dog Rin Tin Tin in the movies) has always been the odd one out. She asks awkward questions, blurts out family secrets at inopportune times, and always seems to be the family scapegoat. Her family punishes her by yelling at her, ignoring her, and sending her away to camp. Neglected and unloved, Rinnie punishes herself by restricting her diet until she is skeletal (the family's skeleton in the closet?).

The reader will immediately understand that while Rinnie appears to be an average child of an upper middle-class family, she is an outcast.  She makes mistakes common to childhood (but uncommon in her family, where appearances take precedence over substance).  As a very young child, Rinnie stole a small charm from the department store.  She told the rabbi who came for dinner about the family's Christmas tree.  She doesn't enjoy summer camp or shopping for clothes.  Rinnie just doesn't fit in.

Rinnie tries to reinvent herself in order to receive the love and attention she craves.  She renames herself Rinnie, for the dog Rin Tin Tin, who is loved by all and is the symbol of universal approval.  Rinnie (whose true name eventually is completely forgotten by everyone who knows her) climbs the slippery slope of popularity, eventually becoming a cheerleader (generally the pinnacle of teen society).  But it is to no avail.  Rinnie's parents divorce.  Her father takes her brother with him to become part of his new happy family, and she and her sister are left to cope with their mother, who is on a downward spiral of alcoholism, mental illness, and messy relationships with a series of men and marriages. Her sister escapes through schoolwork and trips abroad.  She knows how dreadful her mother has become, and yet she abandons her younger sibling to save herself.

Rinnie and her mother clash.  Rinnie is helpless to save her mother from self-destruction and desperate to win any sign of approval from the parent left to her.  As her mother sinks further and further into depression, she lashes out with increasing viciousness at Rinnie.  In an era when mental illness went largely untreated and was politely ignored, Rinnie becomes the caretaker of the person who should be taking care of her.  Held to impossible standards, Rinnie retreats into anorexia.  No one in her family circle seems to notice as Rinnie turns into a walking skeleton.

With the help of a school guidance counselor, Rinnie develops a support system and is gently drawn back from the brink of self-destruction. The road to complete recovery will be long, but Rinnie is armed with acute self-perception, and the reader comes away from the novel with the feeling that hers will be a successful journey.

Summary: With the help of the school guidance counselor, Rinnie comes to terms with her dysfunctional family relationships and her battle with eating disorders. 

                 

Anorexia-Fiction, Divorce-Fiction               --Hilary Welliver

Nielson, Susin. Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom.

Nielson, Susin.   Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom. Tundra Books  240p      $10.95      978-1-77049-295-0       ms/hs   VG-BN     Realistic fiction

Violet’s parents are divorced.  Her father is a Hollywood producer who is remarried to a blonde starlet and living upscale; her mother is working as a hairstylist in Vancouver and living in a run-down house.  Violet bitterly resents her father’s new family and is appalled by her mother’s choices of boyfriends.  The latest is, most unfortunately, named Dudley Wiener.  Violet must deal with her dysfunctional life in the best way that she can, but her anger and unhappiness tend to overwhelm her.  When she visits her father in Los Angeles again, she dreams up a wonderful scheme.  The next time that she accompanies her father to his television set in a major studio, she plans to find George Clooney and ask him to marry her mother.

Nielsen has written a book filled with strong, unforgettable characters, an interesting plot, realistic descriptions of a split family and, of course, a romantic interest.  Told as a first-person narrative, Violet’s story will both tug at the readers’ heartstrings and make them laugh aloud.  She is a most appealing character with real problems, and her attempts to solve them and reconcile her feelings for both her families make for compelling reading.    What more could anyone want?  This is sure to be a hit in the middle-school library.  It is highly recommended.

Divorce–Fiction, Families-Fiction                                -- Susan Ogintz   

Springer, Nancy. My Sister’s Stalker.

Springer, Nancy.  My Sister’s Stalker.    Holiday House     93p   $16.95  978-0-8234-2358-3                 jr/sr       E-BN      Realistic Fiction

Rig misses his dad and sister. Since the divorce, they have left to live in another city.  Rig stayed with his mother, who is an artist, but sometimes he feels as if she is simply not in touch with life.  Curious to see what his sister is up to, Rig googles her and finds her in all kinds of pictures of her college life.  He also finds one web site that is different from all the rest.  On the surface, it seems to be a romantic web site about his sister, but as he views it, he begins to feel that something is not right.  He has a gut feeling that this isn't an ordinary web site.  He visits his father and shows him the contents of the web site and they agree.  What happens next is the most fearful event of Rig’s life. He is sure that his sister is being stalked, and he is afraid that it is escalating.  He doesn't know why it is happening, but if he wants to save his sister, he had better figure it out soon.

This story is a fast and scary read, a book that you will not be able to put down until the end.           

Stalking-Fiction, Divorce-Fiction, Realistic fiction  -- Magna Diaz