Jordan MacKenzie had a typical teenage life until her father's affair with a married woman threatens to implode her entire world in this searing and poignant novel from Printz Honor medal winner and National Book Award finalist Deb Caletti.
People ask me all the time what having Vince MacKenzie for a father was like. What they mean is, was he always crazy?
High school junior Jordan MacKenzie's life was pretty typical: fractured family, new boyfriend, dead-end job. She'd been living with her father, the predictable optometrist, since her mother, the hippie holdover, had become too embarrassing to be around. Jordan felt that she finally had as normal a life as she could. Then came Gayle D'Angelo.
Jordan knew her father was dating Gayle and that Gayle was married. Jordan knew it was wrong and that her father was becoming someone she didn't recognize anymore, but what could she do about it? And how could she--how could anyone--have possibly guessed that this illicit love affair would implode in such a violent and disturbing way?
Show moreJordan MacKenzie had a typical teenage life until her father's affair with a married woman threatens to implode her entire world in this searing and poignant novel from Printz Honor medal winner and National Book Award finalist Deb Caletti.
People ask me all the time what having Vince MacKenzie for a father was like. What they mean is, was he always crazy?
High school junior Jordan MacKenzie's life was pretty typical: fractured family, new boyfriend, dead-end job. She'd been living with her father, the predictable optometrist, since her mother, the hippie holdover, had become too embarrassing to be around. Jordan felt that she finally had as normal a life as she could. Then came Gayle D'Angelo.
Jordan knew her father was dating Gayle and that Gayle was married. Jordan knew it was wrong and that her father was becoming someone she didn't recognize anymore, but what could she do about it? And how could she--how could anyone--have possibly guessed that this illicit love affair would implode in such a violent and disturbing way?
Show moreDeb Caletti is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of over sixteen books for adults and young adults, including Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, a finalist for the National Book Award; A Heart in a Body in the World, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book; Girl, Unframed; and One Great Lie. Her books have also won the Josette Frank Award for Fiction, the Washington State Book Award, and numerous other state awards and honors, and she was a finalist for the PEN USA Award. She lives with her family in Seattle.
"Captivating details make this scandalous story seem all too real."
-- Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Debut YA novelist Caletti peoples Jordan's world with fascinating
characters...Jordan's magnetic voice marks Caletti as a writer to
watch." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Entertaining, atmospheric...Jordan's authentic teenage
voice...will hold readers, as will the emotional issues...." --
Booklist
"Gothic with an edge...The characters leap to life...Caletti
expertly succeeds in capturing the way a smart teen can grasp and
skewer her world..." -- Kirkus Reviews
"The book unfolds the drama slowly and suspensefully, creating an
everyday teen world that's perceptive, funny, and nuanced in its
own right..." -- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books,
starred review
The normally stable father of high school junior Jordan becomes involved with a married woman, then kills someone. Told as a flashback through Jordan's first-person narrative (although Jordan does not reveal at the beginning who dies), the novel takes place during the summer on a fictional island in western Washington. Debut YA novelist Caletti peoples Jordan's world with fascinating characters, including a hippie mother who runs a bed and breakfast with her kinetic artist husband, and her best friend, status-focused Melissa, who works with Jordan at a weight loss center run by an eccentric Christian couple. Jordan herself can be funny, making light of her situation with caustic remarks ("He was an optometrist for God's sake" she says when people ask her what her murderous father was like), and also vulnerable ("That's not what people want to hear-that my father was just a normal guy whom I loved, love, with all my heart") as she leads readers carefully towards her eventual realization of her own identity. She also weaves in pieces of advice she's picked up from Big Mama, a wise, warm-hearted fishery worker who often incorporates salmon into her lessons. Two subplots involving Jordan's romantic interests create unnecessary distractions, but captivating details make this scandalous story seem all too real, and Jordan's magnetic voice marks Caletti as a writer to watch. Ages 12-up. (Nov.)
"Captivating details make this scandalous story seem all too real."
-- Publishers Weekly, starred review
-- Publishers Weekly, starred review
-- Booklist
"Gothic with an edge...The characters leap to life...Caletti
expertly succeeds in capturing the way a smart teen can grasp and
skewer her world..."
-- Kirkus Reviews
"The book unfolds the drama slowly and suspensefully, creating an
everyday teen world that's perceptive, funny, and nuanced in its
own right..."
-- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review
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