Reading Metrics
Description
Seventeen-year-old Jill, in grief over the loss of her father, and Mandy, nearly 19-yrs-old, are thrown together when Jill's mother agrees to adopt Mandy's unborn child. The plot contains profanity, sexual references, and mature themes.
Quick Summary
If you've ever felt like your family situation is completely messy and there's no way to fix it, this book gets that. Jill is seventeen and devastated after losing her dad, and then her mom announces she's going to adopt a baby from a girl named Mandy who's barely older than Jill and in a really tough spot. What makes this story stick with you is that nobody is purely right or wrong every character is doing their best with impossible feelings, and watching them figure out how to actually talk to each other (or mostly fail at it) feels real in a way a lot of teen novels don't. It's a quiet, emotional read, not action-packed, but the kind where you find yourself really caring about what happens next. Fans of Sarah Dessen's novels or anything with complicated family dynamics will likely connect with this. Parents should know it deals openly with grief, teen pregnancy, and some language, so it's better suited for older high schoolers who can handle mature themes alongside the genuine heart of the story.