Review by Booklist Review
It's 1973, and 15-year-old Jamie finds herself shunted from California to her uncle Raymond's house in Moline, Illinois, after her grandmother, who raised her, has a stroke. Another exile joins them for the summer 16-year-old Fawn, a cousin who has been sent away from home for bad behavior. Insecure Jamie is enthralled by Fawn, who exudes sexual confidence. Under Fawn's tutelage, she undertakes a transformation that she hopes will help her shed any remnant of that Bakersfield girl she left behind. But their friendship leads Jamie into deep trouble instead of into a promised land of glamor and sophistication. McLain is a poet and it shows in the way she uses language here. Her depiction of Jamie, presented in Jamie's own words, is sensitive and compelling. Interspersed throughout Jamie's narration are flashbacks, delivered from Raymond's point of view and describing his relationship with his troubled sister Suzette, Jamie's mother. Raymond remains something of a cipher, which make these portions of the novel less involving. But Jamie and Fawn are achingly real.--Quinn, Mary Ellen Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The summer of 1973 in Moline, Ill., is enlivened and permanently marked for 15-year-old Jamie by the arrival of her charismatic, seen-it-all cousin, Fawn Delacorte, in McLain's sure-handed if familiar debut novel (after the memoir Like Family). Abandoned by her parents as a baby, Jamie is a lonely, naive teenager from Bakersfield, Calif., sent to live with her uncle Raymond after her grandmother falls sick. She falls under Dawn's spell and embraces the dissolute life of layabout teenagers, brushing ever closer to the inevitable tragedy to come. McLain alternates her vivid first-person account of Jamie's initially glorious summer with Raymond's recollections of his fraught relationship with Suzette, his younger sister and Jamie's mother. The echoes between past and present, Jamie and Suzette, and between Suzette and Fawn ring ever louder as the novel progresses, and protectors clash with those they vainly try to protect. McLain has a good ear for the dialogue of hormonally crazed, unpredictable teenagers. But 1970s childhoods are well-trod literary territory, and it feels as if this tale has already been told. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-Abandoned by her mother when she was a baby, Jamie has lived with her elderly grandparents until recently, when she was uprooted to live with her emotionally detached uncle Raymond. She is 15 in 1973, when her worldly wise cousin Fawn, 16, arrives to spend the summer with them. Insecure and lonely, Jamie loves the idea of having a live-in friend and she immediately falls under Fawn's spell. Wanting more than anything to have Fawn approve of her, Jamie begins to remake herself, and a foreboding sense of the future emerges. Woven throughout the story are flashbacks that shed light on the intense and disturbing relationship between Uncle Raymond and Jamie's mother, Suzette. The parallel stories of Suzette and Fawn shed light on two people who are both disturbed and manipulative. Raymond and Jamie are the victims of the manipulation, but McLain deftly conveys the poor choices each has made along the way. Beautiful writing makes vivid the stark malevolence of Fawn, and the foreshadowing of impending tragedy is so palpable it is frightening. Characters are well drawn and the prose magnificent. Teens will appreciate the dramatic events that lead to tragedy and will ultimately root for Jamie and her uncle.-Jane Ritter, Mill Valley School District, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In this first novel from memoirist and poet McLain (Like Family: Growing Up in Other People's Houses, 2003, etc.), a na™ve Midwestern teen gets a visit from her sly, sexy cousin, and trouble ensues. Jamie has had a lot of bad luck for being only 15: She never knew her father; her mother abandoned her; her grandmother Berna, who raised Jamie, had a stroke; and although her mother's brother was happy to take Jamie in, that meant a move from Bakersfield, Calif., to Moline, Ill., where she has lived ever since. Uncle Raymond is nice, but he mostly goes to work, fixes dinner and watches TV. One day Jamie gets huge news: Fawn, a 16-year-old cousin from Texas who was caught sleeping with her teacher, is being sent to live with Jamie and Raymond for the summer. Jamie loves everything about Fawn, her long, perfect hair, her makeup, her clothes--even her name. For her part, Fawn bides her time, registering her new guardian's oversights. In the high-sun hours the girls work on their tans and listen to the radio. At night Fawn introduces Jamie to the wild side: They sneak out to smoke and drink, first with kids their age, later with older guys who buy them booze in a bar. Eventually Chicago's night life lures the cousins. There they meet a trio of carousing servicemen, and suddenly been-there-done-that Fawn is in way over her head. The writing, incorporating brand names, song lyrics and TV shows of the era (1973), is flat, and the emotionally shutdown Jamie is an odd choice for narrator. The author further distances the reader by dividing the novel into short chapters that alternate Jamie's story, told from her point of view, with the story of self-sacrificing Raymond, told in the third person in a voice that sounds too much like Jamie's. Strange brew. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by School Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
