The Fortunes of Indigo Skye
Publisher's Weekly

Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

The old saying "Money can't buy happiness" proves true for high school senior Indigo Skye after she receives a $2.5 million tip from a handsome stranger at the suburban Seattle restaurant where she is a part-time waitress. Before long, the pressure is on from friends and family to spend (or not spend) her money a certain way. Although the lesson of this rags-to-riches tale is evident from the beginning, Caletti (Honey, Baby, Sweetheart) builds characters with so much depth that readers will be invested in her story. Indigo's ability to recognize and appreciate what makes other people tick makes her an unusually compelling narrator, even when her values get blown off course. The rest of the cast, all of whom harbor conflicts and aspirations of their own, radiate personality, especially the crew of customers who regularly patronize Indigo's restaurant (they include a man accused of murdering his wife, a heavily tattooed factory worker and a Native American poet with a chemical imbalance). Working from a premise that strains credibility, Caletti spins a network of relationships that feels real and enriching. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Nature of Jade
Publisher's Weekly • Children's Literature • Romantic Times Book Club Magazine • KLIATT • VOYA • BCCB • Booksense • Bookpage • Kirkus • Slayground • Tenreads Too • School Library Journal • Booklist

Publisher's Weekly

When 17-year-old Jade sees a curly-haired boy on a zoo Web camera—a boy with a baby on his back—she gets that "little feeling of knowing, this fuzzy, gnawing sense that someone will become a major something in your life." After she volunteers to work with the elephants, she meets and falls in love with Sebastian, and is quickly drawn into his complicated life—including his dangerous secret. Jade's life has its own complexities, such as a "missing in action" father, and a mother who is overly involved in Jade's high school. Caletti's (Wild Roses) multilayered novel interweaves many plot points; the fascinating anecdotes about animal behavior that begin each chapter ground the story, as does the guidance of Jade's gentle counselor. Some characters do not fully come alive, such as the brokenhearted elephant keeper Damian, who mourns the pachyderm he left behind in India. (Readers will likely take to Damian regardless, and appreciate his part in teaching Jade that she is like her name, "One of the strongest materials. Stronger than steel.") The author offers a rather unflinching look at realistically complicated lives; readers will root for Jade as she begins to learn that she can't "put things into separate compartments: right, wrong, good, bad"—especially when it comes to the people she loves. Ages 12-up. (Feb.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Children's Literature

On the day her parents leave for a second honeymoon in Hawaii, Jade thinks she's going to die—her heart pounds painfully in her chest and she fights for breath—just before the macaroni and cheese dinner becomes history. Three years later, a high school senior, Jade is still taking medication for her anxiety/panic attacks, still seeing a psychologist, has learned some strategies to cope, but is still scared of lots of things, like going away to college. It calms her to watch the elephants on the zoo cam, where one day she sees the boy in the red coat with the baby in his backpack and she is hooked. Jade's own family is slowly coming apart as she becomes part of two new families—the elephant family at the zoo where she now volunteers, and the red-jacket boy's, which has to be kept a secret. This story of a young woman growing up, falling in love (with a boy, a baby, the elephants), and learning to renegotiate all the important relationships in her life is told with such heart and in such resonant language that the reader wants to meet and know these characters in real life. Jade struggles with some of the same troubling issues faced by other young adults, including peer pressure, parental demands, and her own fear and uncertainty about making the right decisions. Everything about this book is well done—character development, setting, pacing of the story, writing style—Caletti is a master of the art.

Author of a National Book Award finalist (Honey, Baby, Sweetheart), Deb Caletti unites the unique and the commonplace in her latest coming-of-age novel. Jade DeLuna struggles to navigate the changing landscape of her relationships with her family and friends during her senior year of high school, while also dealing with panic disorder. This debilitating condition causes her to fear anything new and question her own instincts about what is good for her, and what is dangerous. To calm herself, she visits the zoo and becomes so fascinated by the elephants—and so disgusted with the smallness of her own life—she becomes a volunteer at the elephant house. Thus begins Jade's education in animal behavior, and she gradually forms bonds with both the elephants and the people who work at the zoo. When she meets Sebastian, a young father raising his son alone, Jade's heart wars with her head as she learns how complicated life can be in spite of her caution. With intelligent yet emotion-drenched prose, Caletti expertly weaves a story of humor and pathos featuring a cast of unforgettable, multi-faceted human and animal characters. Along the way, she offers gentle lessons in compassion, growth, and change, and the power of love in its many forms.

Romantic Times Book Club Magazine (Top Pick)

Once again, Caletti proves to be one of the best writers in her genre with a book full of heart, depth, great twists, and fully realized, soulful and flawed characters. Her top-notch writing rivals that of YA master Sarah Dessen.

Summary: High school senior Jade has a panic disorder that makes her feel like she can't breathe and she might die. Once she takes control of this, other things fall into place, like meeting the boy in the red jacket. Meanwhile, trouble with her mother - who embarrassingly clings to the high school rituals Jade shuns - climaxes with the ultimate embarrassment for them both.

KLIATT (Starred Review)

Caletti, author of carefully written YA novels such as Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, a finalist for the National Book Award, gives us an unusual story about a brilliant teenager named Jade, a senior in high school. Part of the nature of Jade is that she suffers from debilitating panic attacks, helped by medication, but baffling and confusing. One of her coping mechanisms is to focus on the web cam coverage of the elephant house at the local zoo, keeping watch over the marvelous creatures. Eventually she volunteers at the zoo and bonds with the elephant keeper, Damian Rama. As Jade monitors the web cam from her own room and also spends time with the elephants at the zoo, she notices that a young man with a small child frequently comes to observe the elephants. Eventually Jade meets Sebastian and his little son and their friendship turns into a love affair. But, Sebastian is hiding a secret that will change their plans for the future, and the secret raises ethical considerations that are difficult to resolve. To meet these challenges, Jade needs to overcome her own fears and allow herself to take some risks. In telling about Jade and Sebastian, Caletti pushes her readers to consider these same moral choices, and perhaps to realize that sometimes there are no correct answers in life. In and around the story about humans is the story of the elephants, especially Jum, a young elephant who was left behind in Asia by Damian Rama, the elephant keeper, who says to Jade, "When you raise an animal, you love it like your own child. I know her thoughts, her needs. She wonders where I am, and I can't bear it." So Damian, like Sebastian, leaves Jade to care for a small creature he loves. But Damianreassures her, "You are not vulnerable any more…you are living up to your name." And Damian Rama is right: Jade is stronger, and when spring comes in a new year, she can finally conquer her own fear of change.

VOYA

Panic attacks are what Jade DeLuna knows best, although medication and an understanding therapist have recently helped her to cope more successfully. Because she has always found elephants relaxing, she spends her more anxious moments gazing at the elephants at the local zoo on their Web cam. She observes a young man, noting that he visits often, sometimes with a toddler in a backpack and often late at night, without him. Jade feels that she needs to meet him, so she decides to volunteer at the zoo in the elephant enclosure. She is an immediate success with both the elephant trainer and the elephants because of her gentle nature, and she meets Sebastian and Bo, the boy and the toddler. Soon Jade learns that Sebastian's life is very complicated, maybe too complicated for someone trying to overcome anxiety disorder. But as Jade discovers, sometimes love takes a person in directions one might never have anticipated. Caletti masterfully creates her character and setting with highly crafted, straight-to-the heart prose. Jade, unsure of herself and her feelings except when she is interacting with the elephants, is someone whom teen readers will recognize. This interaction anchors the book and Jade's increasing confidence and comfort with the world. Sensitive readers will deeply connect with Sebastian's love for his son, Jade's love for the elephants, and the loss of love that her parents are experiencing. Caletti is not for every reader, but the right readers will feel every word in this book.

BCCB

The jade of the title is a high school senior, struggling with anxiety disorder and with irritation at her static life. She breaks her routine by volunteering at the zoo's elephant compound, drawn at first by a young man she's seen watching the creatures; soon she's enamored of both the elephants and the young man, Sebastian. Sebastian has a toddler, Bi, from a previous relationship; though he initially tells Jade that Bo's mother has died, he eventually reveals that he's actually in hiding from her and her parents, who are seeking custody of the child. In Caletti's careful hands, this isn't just a romance; it's also a playing out of Jade's slow-coming independence, and the romance is a factor affecting her rich and believable family dynamics.

Readers will immediately sympathize with Jade's frustration with her mother, who as dance chaperone and eager school volunteer is trying to have the high school experience she wishes her daughter would have, and with Jade's irritation with her father, who's demanding and emotionally distant. Her relationship with Sebastian credibly becomes her way of bridging the gap to adulthood and the issue on which she finally separates from her parents; this means that her mother's decision, upon discovering the truth, to notify Bo's mother's family about Bo's whereabouts is a metaphoric grab for her daughter even as it's an understandable action to take. Smooth, perceptive writing adds polish to an already compelling story that's sure to draw teens contemplating their own leaps into independence.

Booksense

This book wraps intimate storytelling, wit, and wisdom around tumultuous, dynamic characters. When I closed the book, I wanted more stories of elephants and houseboats and grandmothers who rock, of human hearts, breathless moments, and taking risks."
-Amy Carlson

Bookpage

It's all happening at the zoo

Jade has panic attacks. Even though she's AP English/Calculus smart, and pictures the desert or counts syllables on her fingers to calm her heartbeat, sometimes she still can't stop her throat from constricting or get over the terrible feeling that she is in a box she cannot get out of. One of the things that helps to calm her is to watch the elephants on the webcam of her local zoo.

That's where she first sees Sebastian. And his child. He looks around her age—17—so could that really be his kid? The sight of him becomes something she craves, so it's nice that he keeps a regular schedule. But she wonders why he sometimes comes there at night after the zoo is closed, by himself. What worries him so?

When she starts volunteering at the zoo, she thinks it will be good for her college applications, and she might even run into Sebastian sometime. It turns out to be the perfect plan, in so many ways. And Sebastian turns out to be the perfect guy—except for the nagging doubts that she can't shake. Still, she finds herself loving everything about him, his grandmother Tess and his little boy Bo.

When Jade finds out the truth, it is even more complicated than she could have guessed. Should she tell her mother? As she makes that decision, the fabric of her own family starts to unravel. Suddenly, her decision forces Sebastian out of her reach, just like he was on the webcam. What is really right? What needs to stay the same, and what is OK even if it changes?

Deb Caletti, whose previous books include The Queen of Everything, National Book Award finalist Honey, Baby, Sweetheart, and Wild Roses, has written a touching portrait of one girl's passage into womanhood. This vivid story, with funny, smart Jade who worries about imaginary problems while real ones are much more likely, is sure to please. With real insight into the concerns of teens, The Nature of Jade offers readers a sort of literary webcam for observing one of Caletti's most intriguing characters.
-Linda White

Kirkus

The Nature of Jade
For Jade, prone to panic attacks that consume her, watching the elephant cam from the nearby zoo offers peace. But when she becomes smitten with a boy she sees also watching the elephants, Jade finds herself shaken out of her complacent and often narrow life. As she cleans elephant feet and learns valuable lessons from the head keeper about love and family, Jade continues watching for the boy. When she meets him, a lovely romance ensue – until Sebastian’s past (and the mother of his young son) comes forward to complicate things. Suddenly, Jade must take control of herself and make some difficult decisions. Smart, engaging (and occasionally awkward) first person narration, genuinely complex relationships and strong secondary characters (Sebastian’s activist grandmother; Jade’s falling-apart parents) combine to make this a sure hit for fans of Sarah Dessen. The naturalist element in the zoo scenes is an added and original bonus. All in all, a pleasure.

Slayground

The Nature of Jade
Jade doesn't know yet that she wants something more out of life - and that she is about to meet someone that will change her life.

Good student Jade is an overachiever who has developed panic disorder. Sometimes, the medicine she takes makes her antsy at night, so she's taken to watching the online elephant cam from her local zoo. One night, the camera shows her a young boy in a red jacket with a baby boy, and she is inexplicably drawn to them.

Throughout the course of her senior year, Jade finds herself feeling more and more out-of-place with her friends as they discuss their future plans. She's ready for her life to change, but she's not sure how. When she gets a job at the zoo and befriends the elephants and their caretakers, things seem right again.

Then she meets the boy in the red jacket face-to-face. As their relationship grows, secrets are revealed on both sides, and it is that relationship which ultimately gives her the strength to make some extremely difficult choices.

I have never worked with elephants. I never knew a Sebastian. I (thankfully) haven't suffered from panic attacks. But there was something about Jade that mirrored something in me, and that really made me connect with the character.

I think I have a new favorite Deb Caletti novel.

I shared the following with Deb, and now I will share it with all of you: I enjoyed the story and the writing so much that I purposely slowed my reading speed down to take it all in. I wanted this book to last.
-Allie Costa

TeenReads Too

Since being diagnosed with Panic Disorder, Jade DeLuna does not know how to cope with the shortness of breath and dizzy feelings, but could this all change when she meets the boy in the red jacket?

Jade,18, is in her senior year of high school when she is diagnosed. She knows nothing good can come out of it and she thinks not even the support of her family can help her through. Not only that, but her other family members have problems of their own.

Like her little brother, Oliver, who loves reading THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA books, but their dad has other plans for him. Dad wants Oliver to love sports, but even though Oliver has tried many times with soccer, baseball, and football, he can't seem to enjoy them. Jade and Oliver both notice their parents' marriage is falling apart, with mom always at PTA meetings and dad locking himself downstairs with his wooden city sculptures.

With all of this, Jade doesn’t feel relaxed a bit.

Soon Jade finds an escape from everything, and that escape is the elephants. Not only do the elephants calm her down, they make her feel important and not so tied up in her schoolwork. Jade puts a video cam on the local zoo's elephants cage so she can have the elephants anytime she wants on her computer screen -- but one night she notices on the live video a boy in a red jacket with a toddler. Jade is so intrigued by the young man and the toddler that she volunteers at the zoo's elephant park. One day, while leaving the zoo, she finally meets the young man. The moment he speaks, Jade knows she likes him and she knows she wants to see him again.

Will I ever see the mysterious young man and the toddler again?

If I do, will it develop into a relationship?

And is the toddler his kid?

These are all questions that Jade asks herself, and if you read this book you will find the interesting answers.

THE NATURE OF JADE by Deb Caletti is a great novel that keeps you attached and interested until the end. Ms. Caletti definitely knows how to write an engaging life story and I totally recommend this book to anyone who loves reading. I give it 5 stars!!!

School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up–Seventeen-year-old Jade DeLuna suffers from panic attacks broughton by realizations of her own mortality. In addition to therapy and prescribed medication, she finds relief from her condition by taking care of elephants at a local zoo in Seattle. When she meets Sebastian, a handsome boy with a 15-month-old son, she falls in love with him and becomes immersed in his world. In addition to dealing with her anxiety and keeping her relationship with Sebastian secret, Jade must also come to terms with her parents' deteriorating marriage, her friends drifting apart, and an A.P.-heavy course load. Told from her perspective, the novel contains intense passages about loneliness, death, and human relationships intercut with seemingly factual information about the physical and emotional lives of elephants. Frequent remarks about the similarities between humans and animals often feel redundant, and the plot is more entertaining than Jade's animal anecdotes. Despite this, the novel takes on an interesting perspective that is not often shown in books–that teen parents can form meaningful and loving relationships with their peers.
–Marie C. Hansen, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

BookList

Upon learning that the substance for which she was named is one of the strongest materials ("stronger than steel"), Jade replies, "I don't feel strong." And for good reason: the 18-year-old suffers from panic attacks. Partly to pursue a calming activity and partly to meet the cute boy she has observed on the Seattle's zoo's Webcam, Jade volunteers at the zoo and begins work at the elephant house. In due course, she meets the boy, Sebastian, and they fall in love. But there are problems: Sebastian is a single father, and he has a secret that threatens to destroy Jade's hopes and dreams. Jade's first-person voice seems overly sophisticated, and her story is sometimes needlessly complex--especially when Caletti tries too hard to equate human and animal behavior. On the other hand, the author does a fine job of developing both principal and supporting characters (even the elephants are nicely differentiated), describing their emotions deeply as well as authentically. The love story is also quite captivating.
-Michael Cart
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Wild Roses
Publisher's Weekly • School Library Journal • BCCB • Voya • Books in Canada • Kirkus • Book Club Magazine • Teenreads • KLIATT • Booklist • The Olympian - The Bookmonger

Publisher's Weekly (starred review):

Caletti (The Queen of Everything) again plays with themes of passion and recklessness in this rich novel. Cassie never liked Dino Cavalli, a "world-renowned composer and violinist, a combination of talent virtually unheard of," the man her mother married five days after divorcing her father. When he goes off anti-depression medication to compose new works, he becomes paranoid. Meanwhile, Cassie, who "had had enough of people of passion," prefers astronomy to music. Yet she falls in love with Dino's student, Ian, a violin prodigy with his own family secrets. Cassie's first-person narrative will sweep up readers, and her exploration of the fine line between madness and genius alternates between humor and painful truth. (The book's title comes from Van Gogh's Wild Roses, one of the paintings he completed just before his suicide.) The author builds the tension well: as Dino's concert approaches, Cassie's father finds holes in Dino's Italian childhood (memorialized in a biography); Dino thinks his former agent is stalking him; and Ian looks worn as his music school audition nears. Some characters may seem less credible (e.g., Ian's stepbrother and Cassie's eccentric grandmother) but only by contrast with a cast of otherwise full-blooded characters, including Cassie's mother, who grows thin trying to control Dino's insanity, but closes her eyes and smiles when he performs ("gone to wherever music and passion can take her"). In the end, readers will empathize with each trapped character, even Dino himself. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal (starred review):

Seventeen-year-old amateur astronomer Cassie Morgan wants a 'normal' life, but that possibility flew out the window three years earlier when her musician mother, divorced five days, married famous violinist Dino Cavalli. Living with arrogant Dino is like walking on eggshells, and the usually competent, clearheaded teen believes he has the unique ability to make her feel 'incapable to the point of needing to be institutionalized.' Any little thing sets him off, and the problem only gets worse when he stops taking his depression medication while he prepares for his huge comeback concert. When Ian Waters, a promising-and poverty-stricken-young violinist, shows up for lessons with the maestro, Cassie falls in love at first sight despite her belief that passion only brings about pain. Dino demands that the two stay away from one another to avoid compromising the young man's focus, but that is impossible. And as Dino's concert and Ian's scholarship audition draw closer, even Cassie's loving mother can't protect her from Cavalli's escalating bizarre and paranoid behavior. With its profound observations and vivid, if occasionally profane, language, this multifaceted and emotionally devastating novel will stick with readers."

BCCB:

Seventeen-year-old Cassie has discovered that living with a musical genius sounds more glamorous than it is. Her stepfather, Dino Cavalli, may be a world-renowned violinist and composer (to the point where a musical classmate of Cassie’s follows her home just to bask in the Cavalli glow), but Cassie and her mother must work around his savage temper, his obsessive suspicions about his old manager, his sharp-tongued arrogance. Cassie evades trouble as best as she can until she falls for Dino’s gifted student, Ian; Dino forbids their relationship, but Cassie and Ian find it impossible to stay away from each other, even though Ian is preparing for an audition upon which his family’s future stands, and even though Dino is becoming increasingly, frighteningly erratic. As in The Queen Of Everything (BCCB 1/03), Caletti shows herself a master stylist, again bringing keen insight to a household where a teen tries to coexist with an adult losing control. Though the book at one point labels Dino disorder as depression, his actions are more dangerously manic and delusional than the term suggests, and Cassie’s narration speaks eloquently of the toll such disintegration takes on those laboring to keep loved ones functional. What’s really interesting here, though, isn’t Dino’s unraveling but Cassie’s life under its influence, especially her tender yet uncertain relationship with Ian and her suborning of his rebellion. Characterization, especially of Ian’s eccentric step-brother and his best buddy, who are Ian’s staunch supports, further enriches the story. Readers struggling with their own turmoil will find Cassie a kindred spirit, while others may begin to appreciate the comparative calm of their lives.

Voya:

This novel is a close examination of the unraveling of a family affected by both genius and paranoia. The unraveling is subtle, occurring in bits and pieces, as a story in real life would unfold. Cassie lives with her mother and her stepfather, the genius violinist Dino Cavalli. Cassie has her concerns about Dino, but it is not until the pressure to create something new brings out the worst in him that Cassie understands the depth of his problems. Meanwhile she is learning to open up and let love into her life, with disastrous consequences. Ultimately Cassie learns that she cannot control her emotions and that risks are worth taking.

Caletti crafts a fine story of a girl finding her way while coping with her parents divorce, her own fears, and an unstable home. The slow unfolding of Dino’s paranoia, the highs and lows of Cassie’s relationship with Ian, and the uncovering of secrets echoes the slow unfolding of life. It builds tension, resolves conflicts in a real-life sloppy manner in which the reader’s heart knows that the story continues, and yet leaves the reader satisfied that the characters one has grown to love – or at least empathize with such as Dino – will persevere. Furthermore Cassie has an eye on the natural world around her and the voice to bring a moment alive within a setting that paints a vivid picture in the mind’s eye. Caletti’s ability to create a story improves with each work.

- Mary Ann Harlan

Books in Canada:

Living with a world renowned musical genius on Seabrook Island, Washington, isn't always fun, especially for 17-year-old Cassie Morgan, whose cellist mother has dumped the dull but steadying company of her accountant father for the volatility of a life with violinist and composer Dino Cavalli. Dino's official biography trumpets his boot-strap rise from the poverty-stricken obscurity of a small town in Italy to the riches and applause of the world's concert stages. But as Cassie describes him, he has self- destructively turned himself into the ticking time bomb of a psychotic whose "perfection could shatter your joy like a bullet through a stained glass window."

In Wild Roses, author Deb Caletti, whose two previous books have won national applause, presents an insightful story of a sensitive but sometimes irreverent, potty- mouthed teenager roller-coastering through a series of emotional relationships with her estranged family members, a bevy of ditzy school friends, and her idealized boyfriend, Ian, a struggling violinist with personal and family demons of his own to deal with. Caletti's story is grippingly told as she orchestrates Cassie, her mom, dad, Ian and step- dad, Dino, towards the crescendo of a public performance where Dino's audience and Caletti's readers get more than they expected. Dino flips out and the true details of his past life begin to emerge. As good as she is at managing plot lines and tension, Caletti is equally adept at depicting realistic characters. Dino's rages quite literally leap off the page and his manic fixation on his former business manager, William Tiero, whom he sees behind trees and in concert hall seats, is eerily frightening (especially since Tiero is never there). Cassie's distrust of Dino, her dedication to her dad, her love for her mom and her on-again, off-again infatuation with Ian are all very believable. And so is she as "not a Hallmark card, ooh-ah romance, Valentine-y love kind of person" attempting to "minimize the impact of divorce." She finds solace in reading the stars with her telescope or caustically dissing "the cheerleaders flashing their asses at us during the afternoon assembly." A couple of "metaphysical motorcyclists", bikers without bikes, who believe in the "Wisdom of Your Inner Voice", cross Cassie's path sometimes as agents of comic relief and at one time as agents for a disastrous accident that imperils Ian's career and threatens to end the teenagers' romance. Even Ian's dog, Rocket, and Cassie's mutt, Dog William, not to be confused with the elusive Manager William, take on lives of their own. Like Holden Caulfield, literary character Cassie Morgan is definitely her own person. She has a unique take on the aftermath of divorce, on a teenager's coming of age in today's world, and on appreciating the fine line separating a genius from a nut case. And it's easy to forecast that because of her, this delightfully told story and its marvellous cast of characters is destined to bring author Caletti the kind of acclaim she has received for her earlier books.

- M. Wayne Cunningham

Kirkus:

Caletti probes the links between madness and artistic genius, passion and stability. Cassie's famous violinist/composer stepfather Dino is "both crazy and a genius," a person the politically correct might call "joy-impaired," "excessively imaginative," "abundantly security conscious" or "emotionally challenged," but who Cassie sees as "hugely depressed," "delusional" and "paranoid." Now, with the looming pressure of an impending concert, he's getting more out of control every day. The situation is exacerbated when against Dino's wishes, Cassie begins seeing his student, an impoverished but incredibly talented violin prodigy who, though ambivalent about a music career, is working furiously to prepare for an audition. At times, the narrative seems to lose focus or drag, and the madness-genius connection fails to convince. Still, Caletti's perceptions on divorce are crystalline, the story is populated with delightfully oddball yet solidly real characters and shot full of genuine wit, and readers will support her likable protagonist's quest to find the balance she needs. (Fiction. 12+)

Book Club Magazine:

With her third book for young adults, Caletti hits the “wow” factor. Never one to shy away from heavy subjects—and always aware that her young adult readers can handle them—Caletti tackles mental illness.

Cassie lives with her mother and step-father, the great violinist and composer Dino Cavalli. Dino is a pretentious jerk, but when he goes off his medication to complete a new composition, he starts to slide off the deep end. Meanwhile, Cassie’s dad, unable to move on since the divorce four years ago, has revealing information on Dino. Cassie, closed off from love after watching her parents’ marriage fail, meets Ian, who is applying to the illustrious Curtis Institute of Music halfway across the country. Should she fall in love if he’s going to leave? When Cassie lets herself go, something horrible happens that makes her think she was right in not wanting to get involved.

Caletti does a wonderful job building up Dino’s destructive behavior and showing how his paranoia rubs off on his family. She writes about the beauty and power of music, and she does it without pretension. It’s always refreshing to read a book that one can enjoy—and learn from—as a teenager or an adult. Kudos to Caletti for constantly challenging the genre.

Teenreads:

Having a stepfather is hard. Having a famous and crazy stepfather is harder. Having Dino Cavalli, world-renown violinist and composer, as your stepfather is nearly impossible. This is the challenge that seventeen-year-old Cassie Morgan faces.

Cassie describes Dino as "both crazy and a genius." More specifically, he is "joy-impaired (hugely depressed), excessively imaginative (delusional), abundantly security conscious (paranoid as hell) or emotionally challenged (wacko)."

A good deal of Dino's paranoia is surrounded by his enemy and former agent, William Tiero. Dino hates Tiero so much that he bought the ugliest dog he could find and named it William. He liked to yell at and control the dog ("Get your nose out of the garbage, William!"). Things are starting to get far worse than naming a pet after his enemy. Now Dino thinks that William Tiero (the real one, not the dog) is out to get him. He swears that Tiero is stalking and spying on him. The paranoia only increases as Dino prepares for an important concert that will reveal new songs for the first time in years.

As Dino's behavior gets more erratic, Cassie becomes more frightened. It doesn't help that her mother is oblivious to Dino's behavior. Not to mention, her father is obviously still in love with her mother and has revealed that he is investigating Dino's background because he believes that something is not quite right.

In the midst of all the craziness of Cassie's home life, she finds herself falling in love at the impossibly worst time. Ian Walters is Dino's young student who is working towards winning a scholarship to a fancy music school. Even though Cassie knows that Ian has to focus on his music, she finds that her heart has a mind of its own.

WILD ROSES is a moving novel that is beautifully crafted. Deb Caletti has a way with words like her characters have with music. She reaches deep into the souls of her characters and stirs up emotions that readers will revel in. Caletti has already proven herself as a wonderful wordsmith with her past novels, and WILD ROSES doesn't let us down.

- Kristi Olson

KLIATT:

The author of The Queen of Everything and Honey, Baby, Sweetheart keeps up her funny, smart banter in this story of an impossible stepfather. The narrator is a 17-year-old named Cassie, who has watched her mother break up her family because of her devotion to a neurotic but genius violinist/composer. For several years, Cassie has been going back and forth between her father's home and her mother's. She loves her mother dearly and can't understand how she can put up with the nearly constant hysterics, paranoia, and verbal abuse emanating from her new husband, Cassie's stepfather. This is all relayed in a tragic-comic voice, with wonderful metaphors tumbling out of Cassie's mind. Cassie's mother rationalizes all by seeing her new husband as a tortured genius, who is mentally ill but capable of producing incredible beauty.

Enter Ian, a gifted music student who must succeed in an audition to be admitted to a top music school. Cassie's stepfather takes Ian on as a student and that's how the two young people meet; however, the attraction they immediately feel for one another has to be beaten down and ignored because of Ian's upcoming competition and because the stepfather absolutely forbids their romance as a distraction Ian can't afford. Nothing like forbidden love to make a good story line! Entertaining without being shallow, this will have strong appeal as an outrageous family story. There is some swearing here and there, totally appropriate to the occasions described.

-Claire Rosser, KLIATT

Booklist:

Gr. 7-10. Caletti explores relationship between genius and madness in her third novel set in the Pacific Northwest. Cassie is the stepdaughter of violin virtuoso Dino Cavalli. Wild Roses is the name of the van Gogh painting that hangs over Dino's desk, and like the painter, Dino is mentally ill. Dino controls his delusions with medication, but as an anticipated comeback concert approaches, he stops taking it. Always bullying and brutish, Dino grows increasingly paranoid, but Cassie tries to balance her anger toward her father with her growing affection for his talented student, Ian. When tragedy strikes at the concert, Cassie discovers the relationship between passion and insanity, and comes to realize how her mother could love someone like Dino. Caletti's hyperbolic, endless-sentence style occasionally overwhelms her otherwise compelling story, but the sincerity of her message shines through in Cassie's descriptions of other historically troubled artists, her parents' painful divorce, and her own new romance. A good selection for mother-daughter book clubs.

-Jennifer Hubert
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The Olympian - The Bookmonger:

Deb Caletti is a smart, funny Issaquah author whose Web site, www.debcaletti.com, makes good reading in and of itself, never mind her highly praised debut book "Queen of Everything" or "Honey, Baby, Sweetheart," which was a National Book Award finalist.

" Wild Roses" is Caletti's latest offering. This is the story of 17-year-old Cassie Logan, an amateur astronomer. She'd be the first to tell you that the stars in her eyes have nothing to do with her stepfather, who is a world-renowned violinist/composer. Frankly, Cassie thinks he's a pain to live with, for Dino Cavalli's genius is both stoked and bedeviled by mental illness.

It's gotten worse since Dino has received a commission to compose three new works for the Seattle Symphony. He has stopped taking his medication in order to unfetter his inspiration -- and now he is succumbing to violent bouts of paranoia.

In an effort to help ground Dino, his manager and Cassie's mom arrange to have Dino teach a brilliant teen violinist, Ian Waters. They couldn't have anticipated that there would be instant chemistry between Cassie and Ian, a complication that only further provokes Dino's mania.

Cassie is a wonderful heroine -- smart and smart-alecky, but sensitive, too. She is tired of keeping Dino's illness hidden from the outside world, and she is frightened by his unpredictable behavior. She has to grapple with the allegiance she feels to each of her biological parents, and now she has to cope with the delicious but disorienting problems of a romance of her own.

With fearlessness, acuity, a smidgen of profanity and dollops of laugh-out-loud humor, Caletti tackles coming of age, love, heartbreak, mental illness, vocational passions and life's general messiness. This is a grandly satisfying book.

-The Bookmonger is Barbara Lloyd McMichael, who writes this weekly column focusing on the books, authors and publishers of the Northwest. Check out her Web site at www.bookmonger.net.

Honey, Baby, Sweetheart
Kirkus • Publisher's Weekly • School Library Journal • Booksense • TeenReads.com • Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books • Booklist • KLIATT • Romantic Times Book Club Magazine • Modesto Bee • The Argonaut

Kirkus Reviews:
Tender and poetic, Caletti's tale of the multifaceted effects of the many kinds of love tells the story of Ruby, who, in an effort to break out of her quiet-girl persona, begins dating an exciting but amoral rich boy. To bring Ruby back into the fold, her divorced librarian mother gets her involved in a reading group for the aged. One of the members of the book club, an elderly woman recently debilitated by a stroke, turns out to be the real-life love of an author whose book they are studying. In the least inspired part of the tale, the crowd decides to kidnap the incapacitated lady from her controlling daughters and bring the lovers together. Caletti has the gift of voice and tells her story with humor, insight, and compassion. Listen to Ruby musing on the delicate balance of kindness and truth between mother and daughter. "We cared too much for each other to have between us the recklessness of complete honesty." Lovely. (Fiction. 12+)

Publishers Weekly:
Ultimately rewarding, this novel about a high school girl who steps out of her role as "The Quiet Girl" for a summer of "passion and adventure... the stuff of the books at the Nine Mile Library where my mother works," shares both the strengths and pitfalls of Caletti's The Queen of Everything. When Ruby gets involved with handsome, motorcycle-riding and rich Travis, she likes that he sees her as fearless. But he is also dangerous, and spellbound Ruby gradually gets sucked into first reckless and then criminal acts. In a concerted effort to help Ruby break away from Travis, her librarian mother, who has just endured a betrayal of her own, begins overseeing Ruby's schedule and takes her to the book club she facilitates for feisty senior citizens, the Casserole Queens—which leads to a whole other story line involving one of their members, a stroke victim who may or may not have been the lover of a famous author. There is a lot of plot, often requiring the audience's leaps of faith over not especially believable moments, and Caletti's prose, laden with strikingly apt comparisons, can make this book feel dense. Even so, so much here is uncommonly vivid, especially the exchanges among Ruby, her mother and her younger brother. Readers who stay with it will find thoughtful and authentically inspiring messages about trusting in themselves enough to insist on a love that means more than being someone's "honey, baby, sweetheart." Ages 12-up. (May)

© Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

School Library Journal (starred review):
Gr 9 Up-During the summer of her junior year, shy, quiet Ruby McQueen falls in love with the rich boy down the block. After their first motorcycle ride, Travis gives her a beautiful gold chain, and she wears it everywhere. Only later, while on a date with him, does she learn where he gets his gifts-he breaks into houses and steals jewelry. Ruby struggles with her conflicted feelings for him. Her parents are separated and hardly stellar examples when it comes to relationships. By spending time with the Casserole Queens (her librarian mother's senior-citizen book group) and listening to their life stories, the teen and her mother finally discover the role models that they've been lacking. Readers will immediately fall for Ruby with her humor and her wry way of looking at the world. Their hearts will break as she makes bad decision after bad decision, and they'll cheer as she comes to some important realizations, with the help of the Casserole Queens. Young adults will see themselves in Ruby and, like her, have some laughs along the road to wisdom. A story full of heart, fun, and energy.

- Lynn Evarts, Sauk Prairie High School, Prairie du Sac, WI
© Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Booksense:
"A wise, witty, and hilarious story that looks at coming-of-age, and so much more. This multigenerational love story is extremely well-written and should appeal both to teenagers and adults. I couldn't stop nodding and laughing in thorough understanding!"

- Morgan Spring, Full Circle Bookstore, Oklahoma City, OK

“Honey, Baby, Sweetheart” is a funny and poignant look at first love and being a teenager. Quiet Ruby McQueen meets bad-boy rich kid Travis Becker and her life spins rapidly out of control. Trying to help her get over a broken heart and to keep her occupied, her mother enrolls her in her weekly book group for senior citizens, a great group of people who are very sympathetic to the trouble Ruby is in: one of their group is the subject of the tragic love story they are reading. This is a wonderful story about love and loss and living through it.

- Rene’ Kirkpatrick, buyer, All for Kids Books & Music

Teenreads.com:
Sixteen-year-old Ruby McQueen thinks her dreams have come true when handsome, wealthy and mysterious biker Travis Becker starts paying attention to her and giving her mind-blowing kisses. At the same time, her sometimes-father pays a visit and Ruby barely recognizes her usually competent librarian mother as she caters to his whims. Ruby doesn't understand why people love where it doesn't make sense, until it happens to her. While she sorts out these feelings, she becomes involved in helping a senior book club member find her long lost love. HONEY, BABY, SWEETHEART is about finding yourself and compassion for others.

Ruby and her brother's pain at seeing their mother hurt over and over again in the same way by their father is also a nice parallel to the mistakes Ruby makes with Travis. When Travis turns out to be someone other than Prince Charming, she finds that it's not so easy to make logical judgments and walk away, even when it would be the right thing to do. Ruby's mother reminds her that she is only human herself, and at least they can support each other.

Everyone has made dating mistakes, and readers will easily relate to Ruby. Deb Caletti, author of THE QUEEN OF EVERYTHING, once again comes through with a believable teen narrator. While the pace is slow at times and readers will be yelling at Ruby not to make some of the choices she does, the subplot involving the book club and Ruby's relationship with her mother makes this book unique and worthwhile.

- Amy Alessio

The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books:
It’s a summer of change for sixteen-year-old Ruby McQueen, who sheds her quiet reputation when she takes up with Travis Becker, daredevil motorcycle-riding son of the local rich family. Travis’ charms lead ruby to become a reckless aider and abettor (“I was fearless, because that’s what he wanted me to be”), until finally she follows him into a criminal act that betrays an old friend. Her mother attempts to wrest her free of Travis’ grip by getting her involved with the Casserole Queens, a group of senior citizens who meet weekly for book discussion, but it turns out that high drama lies there as well. One of its members, now rendered largely speechless by a stroke, turns out to be the long-ago sweetheart of the author whose autobiography they’re reading, and the motley band embark on a wild plan: to spirit Lillian away from her nursing home and down the coast to her former love, who’s waiting to be reunited with her. As she did in The Queen of Everything (BCCB 1/03), Caletti explores the conflicting, complicated impulses of the human heart with polish and penetration. Her portrait of Ruby, aware of her own weakness even as she succumbs to it and hurts those she loves most, is delicate and authentic, conveying a sensitive understanding of character and of our ability to surprise ourselves in ways good as well as bad. Despite the thematic connections, there’s rather a split between the infatuated-with-Travis plot and the road-trip story, but both adventures are wisely and richly drawn (and there’s plenty of humor in the journey). This is a stylish and perceptive account of a young woman’s developing perceptions of human frailty and human strength.

Booklist:
Gr. 9-12. Sixteen-year-old Ruby McQueen is known as "that quiet girl" at school, so she is intoxicated when she meets gorgeous rich-kid Travis Becker, with whom she feels tough and "fearless." Travis involves her in increasingly dangerous stunts until Ruby finally breaks away, but her mother, Ann, knows the difficulty of choosing self-protection over a thrilling love: she has struggled for years to get over Ruby's absent, philandering father. To distract herself and her daughter, Ann brings Ruby to her book club with "The Casserole Queens," a group of wisecracking seniors who embroil Ann and Ruby in a plan to reunite a friend with a lost love. Ruby's romance with Travis, particularly the initial meeting, isn't handled with the same depth as the Casserole Queens' plot, which reads almost like a second novel. But as in her debut, The Queen of Everything (2002), Caletti writes a compelling, multigenerational story about teens and parents who simultaneously weather heartbreak and find new self-worth, enriching the telling with the Northwest setting, folksy wisdom, and Ruby's strong, sure voice.

- Gillian Engberg
© Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved

KLIATT:
Sometimes we are all susceptible to the honey, baby, sweetheart lure—weak even though part of us knows a particular romance is dangerous. Ruby is the narrator, and she starts by telling us about seeing the motorcycle belonging to a handsome rich boy named Travis, and how this changes the summer after her junior year in high school. She can't resist Travis and the thrill of riding fast sitting behind him racing through the dark. So she sneaks out, she lies; then Travis reveals the truth about himself: he is a risk-taker to the extreme, breaking into people's houses, stealing. Ruby knows he is bad, and she thinks what he is doing is wrong—but it's almost impossible to resist him and the excitement of loving him. Two other love stories are happening concurrently. Ruby's mother, a wonderful character—she's a librarian, after all—finds it almost impossible to resist her ex-husband, the father of Ruby and Ruby's brother. Ruby has seen her mother accept her father back, time and time again, being used and discarded. When Ruby's mother discovers Ruby's difficulties getting rid of Travis, the two form a game plan to get over these men. Part of the plan is to keep busy, and one of the ways to keep busy is to be involved in a book discussion group of elderly people who meet regularly. This may seem boring on the face of it—but these folks are outrageous in many ways and certainly not boring. One of the members, Lillian, who has had a stroke, has been separated from her soul mate, a famous writer she knew when they were young. When he finds out Lillian is sick, he urges them to bring Lillian to him in California where he will take care of her. So, Ruby, Ruby's mother, and the group kidnap Lillian from the nursing home and manage to get her safely to her lover in California—several days away by car—partly to prove to themselves there is such a thing as love. Caletti fills the pages with wonderful images, sharp dialogue, and memorable characters. This is longer and more involved than most YA novels, but many YAs will enjoy every bit of it. Caletti is also the author of The Queen of Everything.

KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2004, Simon & Schuster, 308p., Ages 12 to 18.

- Claire Rosser

Romantic Times Book Club Magazine:
In Caletti's second novel, shy, reserved Ruby McQueen goes a little wild, comes to her senses, then learns who she really is.

At 16, Ruby is a one-friend-only girl whose life lacks punch, until she meets Travis Becker, a totally sexy and slightly dangerous boy. Soon, Ruby finds herself doing things she'd never have considered, and she's not too proud of herself. Meanwhile, her mother is trying to deal with her own relationship demons and drags Ruby with her to the local senior book club. Though some teens may be turned off by the senior theme, hopefully they'll stick around to see the lives these extraordinary, funny, rich people lead.

Caletti is a top-notch writer whose book can just as easily be enjoyed by adults as teens. Her smart writing packs keen observations on love, boys and life in general. Plus, the story is really entertaining. (May, 320 pp., $15.95)

- Taylor Morris

Modesto Bee:
Buzzworthy: Caletti's second book an amazing love story

Last Updated: June 17, 2004, 07:40:18 AM PDT
Buzzworthy features reviews of books, music and movies worth checking out.

Bookworm's Favorites: "Honey, Baby, Sweetheart" by Deb Caletti

Synopsis: Ruby McQueen is a self-proclaimed "Quiet Girl." Her mother, Ann, a self-respecting librarian, turns to mush whenever her absentee father comes around, and Ruby and her brother, Chip Jr., are always left to pick up the pieces of their mother's broken heart after he leaves.

Ruby swears she'll never let a man get to her the way her father got to her mother, but then she meets Travis Becker. Travis doesn't know Ruby, doesn't know she's a quiet, shy girl, and Ruby loves the fact that she can be anyone she wants with him.

Caletti connects three love stories: the story of Ruby's mother and father, the story of Ruby and Travis, and yet another story of an 80-year-old woman Ruby's mother is trying to reunite with her lost love. It takes a road trip to reunite the two long-lost lovers to make Ruby realize that she must look inside herself to find true love.

Opinion: Deb Caletti's second book, "Honey, Baby, Sweetheart," is an amazing love story. Ruby is a likeable heroine that any teenage girl will relate to, because what girl hasn't tried to be someone they're not to impress a boy she likes? Ruby, like any teen, fights her mother and falls in love with the wrong guy.

- Jennifer Fraioli

The Argonaut:
"Honey, Baby, Sweetheart" more than a morality tale

In Deb Caletti’s young adult novel “Honey, Baby, Sweetheart,” her main character, Ruby, defies expectations generally given to teenage girls in novels and movies aimed at them by not obsessing over dating and instead focusing on love.

Like many “quiet kid” protagonists, Ruby breaks out of her shell one summer by doing something daring — dating the rich, thieving, handsome, manipulative boy next door. At first, Ruby’s relationship with Travis seems inexplicable beyond his providing a way for her to be a little wild and do things she normally never would. As the story progresses, however, Caletti’s (and Ruby’s) focus drifts off Travis, instead using Ruby’s newfound sense of adventure to more productive means.

This is refreshing because, while Ruby does screw up big-time, Caletti doesn’t dwell on Ruby’s tumble into a rougher world. Ruby is a sweet, reasonable girl, and she is too strong to let herself slip into total destruction.

Ruby’s struggle with Travis parallels her mother Ann’s struggle with Ruby’s father, Chip. Chip took off years before the book’s action to be a country singer at an amusement park, but divorce and bitterness didn’t exactly follow. Instead, he stops by once in a while, just enough to keep Ann in love and hopelessly lonely.

After Travis and Chip drive Ruby and Ann to their breaking points, the mother-daughter duo (whose relationship rarely falters in this book, probably thanks to their similar problems) takes a wild road trip — with a bunch of elderly women.

“The Casserole Queens,” as they are known, are a book club for retired women that Ann (a librarian) facilitates. To keep Ruby’s mind off Travis, Ann forces her to come along.

Each of the “Queens” is endearingly kooky if slightly under-characterized. Mrs. Wong is convinced that her mild-mannered husband is cheating on her, and Harold, the only male member of the club, is allowed in because he’s a great cook. But the most complex member of the Queens is newcomer Lillian.

Lillian, who is rendered speechless and largely helpless by a stroke, has a strange attachment to books written by a famous author the book club is studying.

The mystery is solved far too quickly — really, it’s not enough of a mystery to bother concealing. Lillian and this author had a love affair long ago, and Ruby, Ann and the Queens take it upon themselves to reunite them.

This adventure, not the unfortunate love dramas, is the heart of Caletti’s story.

Ruby is amazingly insightful through the whole book, and her most profound comments pop up during the trip. Besides her ability to reflect on the good that came out of her summer of conflict, Ruby also uses striking metaphors and anecdotes to pinpoint exactly how she is feeling or what she is seeing and allow the reader to understand perfectly.

“Honey, Baby, Sweetheart” is good for teenage girls to read because of the gentle lessons it imparts, but the story itself is far deeper than a morality tale, and can be enjoyed by all readers.

- Tara Roberts

The Queen of Everything
Kirkus • Publisher's Weekly • School Library Journal • Amazon.com • TeenReads.com • Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books • Booklist

Kirkus Reviews:
Alternating between pithy humor and ominous foreboding, high-school junior Jordan MacKenzie’s voice describes her life, family, and friends in this gothic with an edge. The edge is from her own witty commentary on life on Parrish Island, an imaginary community located off the coast of Washington State in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The bringing together of sadness and foreboding with humor is reminiscent of Elvin in Chris Lynch’s Slot Machine (1995) although Jordan appears to be less intentionally working at being funny. It is simply her take on life: her values, her awareness of pretensions, oddities, and incongruencies. The characters leap to life (including the dogs), as Jordan details the daily events that inexorably lead first to tragic events, and ultimately to a rescue of a sort. Threading throughout is the awareness that horror is ahead. When it does arrive, it doesn’t quite seem as ghastly as expected. Most of the plot is driven by actions of the adults in the story, but when Jordan chooses to act, she’s obviously learned a trick or two about manipulation and getting what you want. She’s chosen to live with her father as the more normal one of her parents, but he becomes obsessed with a married woman and Jordan’s life spirals out of control. While not the focus, her own first miserable experiences with sex and the death of a grandparent are encompassed in this somewhat long, but nonetheless fast-paced debut. Humor gets little respect, but Caletti expertly succeeds in capturing the way a smart teen can grasp and skewer her world and what passes for everyday normal in a wry tone that never fails to recognize the seriousness of the situation. Cosmic comedy. (Fiction. YA)

Publishers Weekly (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)

© Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

School Library Journal:
From the beginning of this absorbing novel, readers know that Jordan’s father will kill the husband of the woman with whom he’s having an affair. The tone of the story, however, is unexpectedly light as Caletti introduces the teen’s free-spirited mother, ultra-religious boss, colorful neighbors, and optometrist father. Caught up in her own romantic dilemma-choosing between a cruel but good-looking classmate and the quirky, caring brother of her best friend-Jordan is slow to realize that her father is having an affair with glamorous Gayle D’Angelo. In the last 100 pages, she must come to terms with what her father has done and find a way to rebuild her own life. Most of the novel, however, deals with her day-to-day life, friendships, and family relationships. Caletti lovingly describes the setting, a small town on the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound, and Jordan’s several adult mentors are well developed as characters. Her own poor choices at times run parallel to her father’s, as she dates and has a disastrous sexual encounter with a boy she knows is bad news before finally wising up. Through it all, she manages to observe the people around her with love and amusement. Teens will gain insight into how obsessive love can drive even ordinary-seeming individuals to commit terrible acts. (Grade 9 Up )

- Miranda Doyle, San Francisco Public Library
© Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Amazon.com:
“Nothing like that happens to people like me, not to people like my dad, who changes the oil in his car and pays his bills on time... I mean, imagine it. Your father. Your father. I can tell you, though, it does happen. To people like me.” Up until now, 17-year-old Jordan’s biggest problem in life was dealing with her hippy-dippy mom, the kind of woman who “might suddenly flop out a boob” to nurse her little brother. She much preferred the company of her calm, measured father, “a Shredded Wheat and All-Bran guy,” who never embarrassed her in front of her friends. That’s why Jordan is stunned when her nice, divorced dad starts acting like a lovelorn teenager over one of their neighbors, Gayle D’Angelo. True, Gayle is pretty, but she’s also married. Too proud to let anyone in their cloistered Pacific Northwest island community know, Jordan decides to handle the situation herself. She tries everything from directly confronting her dad, to dating local thug Kale Kramer in a misguided attempt to gain her father’s attention. But nothing seems to work, and when Gayle’s husband goes missing and the police name Jordan’s dad as a suspect, Jordan’s life rapidly spins out of control.

Emotional and intense, Deb Caletti’s first book for young adults is reminiscent of other recent teen psychological page-turners like Carol Plum-Ucci’s What Happened to Lani Garver and Aimee by Mary Beth Miller. Jordan is a realistic heroine that older female teen readers will sympathize with and cheer for as she struggles to understand this suddenly complex world of adult motivations and desires. (Ages 13 and older)

- Jennifer Hubert

Teenreads.com:
Jordan MacKenzie’s dad was so…normal. He was an optometrist --- certainly not the type anyone would think would go out and do something irrational. Jordan got along with him much better than she got along with her hippie mom, who threw a party when Jordan got her first period and married a “kinetic artist,” whose metal sculptures decorate the lawn and spin in the trees on their property. Her dad is the last person Jordan ever suspects would do anything drastic, but her view of him is forced to change when he starts dating Gayle D’Angelo. Gayle is charming, beautiful and makes Jordan’s father act like a silly teenager with a crush. That, of course, would all be fine and good if Gayle wasn’t married. As the summer progresses, Jordan’s father falls further into his obsession with Gayle D’Angelo and it leads to a horrific ending.

There’s a lot more to this book than just Jordan’s parents, though. She has a great best friend, Melissa. Too bad she’s also interested in Melissa’s brother, who’s still recovering from an incident in which he was trapped in the woods for six days with no food. And who’s interested in her? Kale Kramer -- the cutest, most lusted after, most annoying boy in school. It figures. As Jordan’s father gets more caught up in his affair with Gayle, Jordan tries drastic measures to get his attention. Of course, her actions parallel his and this leads to a mess of emotions and family conflict. Every character in this book is unique and voiced well. It’s a book that requires some thought, but where thoughts are concerned, it gives as well as it takes.

- Carlie Kraft
© Copyright 2003, Teenreads.com. All rights reserved.

The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books:
(Jan 2003 cover and The Big Picture review)

There are a lot of people on the edge in young-adult novels, especially young people struggling with serious problems, risking life and future. Though adults too are beset by demons, acute crises are generally the province of the young, even when it’s in response to the troubles of their elders.
Caletti’s novel initially looks like it’s going to fit that solid and reliable pattern. High-school-junior Jordan has long been at odds with her bohemian mother; after one fight too many (during which her mother calls her “the queen of everything”), Jordan walks out on her mother—and her mother’s live-in boyfriend, their impending baby, and their motley crew of boarders—to live with her staid and orderly optometrist father. She’s somewhat concerned about her grandfather, who’s continually antagonizing his boss at the gas station he formerly owned, and she’s sliding into a halfway romance with Kale, a boy she largely despises but enjoys physically. Pushing its way out from beneath those worries, however, is something much darker and more threatening: her father’s increasing obsession with the elegant Gayle D’Angelo, a married neighbor. Jordan watches in dismay as her mild-mannered dad turns into another person, becoming cocky (“Apparently he’d had a little taste of being an asshole and found it to his liking”) and heedless as the affair begins, then disturbingly desperate as Gayle plays him against her husband, until finally he erupts, leaving Mr. D’Angelo dead, himself in jail, and Jordan trying to pick up the pieces of her life.

Caletti sets up Jordan’s narration as the ubiquitous school assignment, making the climax clear from the beginning, but the inevitability only adds to the plot’s momentum. The book unfolds the drama slowly and suspensefully, creating an everyday teen world that’s perceptive, funny, and nuanced in its own right, then shadowing that vision with the gathering darkness of the impending tragedy (“‘Nothing’s going to change,’ I said. Which are about the stupidest four words in the English language”). There’s a rawness to the portrait of Jordan’s father, unable and perhaps even unwilling to pull himself out of his Gayle-centered spiral, hardly seeing his daughter or the consequences of his actions. There’s a parallel vulnerability to the portrait of Jordan herself, a normal kid who sees that her father may take her forever out of the realm of the normal (she’s frightened by the “sudden realization that terrible things might not just be for other people”); there’s true pathos in her complete helplessness (“I wondered if I should call someone. I wondered who exactly I would call”) in the face of creeping disaster and authenticity in her puny efforts to forestall it (she even tells his parents in the desperate hope that they can check their son’s madness).

This is indeed tasty melodrama, and the book’s paperback-original format and eyecatching cover make it an attractive and appealing package. There’s more than mere voyeurism here, however. While there’s a fair amount of literature devoted to describing young people’s struggle for individual identity during adolescence, there’s less on the recognition that adults, even one’s own parents, are separate agents too; that their lives may also change in stunning ways that have nothing do with their kids but nonetheless changes their lives as a consequence; that, as Jordan says, “people you love can be the biggest strangers.” Jordan fortunately discovers both kinds of individual identity, managing to differentiate between her father’s irrevocable direction and her own reversible one and thereby to pull out of her own spiral, surviving “broken but still whole.”

Ultimately, this is a story all the more compelling (and all the darker) for its firm grasp on reality and the utter credibility of its vision.

- Deborah Stevenson, Editor

Booklist:
Gr. 8-12. This lengthy, entertaining, atmospheric first novel explores the issues of trust and betrayal. Seventeen-year-old Jordan McKenzie lives on a small island in Puget Sound with her calm, reliable, divorced father. Her mother, a determinedly free spirit, runs a boarding house filled with eccentric characters. Then Jordan’s world falls apart when her father falls in love with a beautiful, wealthy, married woman. Meanwhile, Jordan’s beloved, feisty grandfather dies unexpectedly, and she loses her virginity with a popular but sadistic boy. Jordan’s authentic teenage voice--self-absorbed, sarcastic, naive--will hold readers, as will the emotional issues of sadness and abandonment, which pack more punch than the sensationalist elements of the plot.

- Debbie Carton
© Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved.