From Publishers Weekly
Despite an intriguing premise and format, Haddix's (Among the Imposters, reviewed June 11) novel may well stretch readers' credibility when years of problems are resolved in one brief summer trip. Siblings 15-year-old Chuck and 14-year-old Lori Lawson go on their first plane ride to join their motivational-speaker mother on a two-week five-city tour, and the teens end up learning about a lot more than fancy hotels and airports. Through Lori and Chuck's alternating perspectives (their mom breaks in occasionally to offer her point of view), readers discover just how angry the seemingly perfect Lori is towards her almost always absent mother and about overweight and clumsy Chuck's self-loathing they even learn why their mother won't talk about their father's death eight years ago. Haddix credibly maps out the Lawsons' dynamics and fills in some interesting details about growing up in agricultural Pickford County (in their chapters, Lori and Chuck discuss 4-H club and taking pigs to slaughter) but the three characters' chapters rotate so quickly that readers rarely get to settle into any one story line. The characters experience dramatic breakthroughs at the conclusion, each unearthing buried secrets from within themselves. But the revelations come too quickly and undermine the authenticity of the previous chapters. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Gr 5-8-A family struggling with guilt and loss learns that repressing feelings can be harmful. Fourteen-year-old Lori Lawson is popular, deeply fearful of appearing "different," and has a narrow view of the world; in short, she's a fairly typical teen. Her 15-year-old brother Chuck is overweight, insecure, and the object of derision in their rural home town. Their mother is a successful motivational speaker who tries to repair her failing relationship with her oldest children by taking them on a lecture tour. Finally, they talk to one another about their feelings and misplaced guilt about the death of the teens' father many years earlier. Lori ultimately learns to be kinder to those she loves while Chuck finds salvation in art, gaining self-confidence and purpose. Their mother realizes she needs to share information about their father with her children. The novel's structure is interesting, alternating between third-person perspectives of Lori and Chuck interspersed with their mother's motivational speeches and her true feelings of powerlessness. The narrative voices are individually distinct and ring true for all three characters, none of whom is entirely blameless in the degeneration of their relationships. Haddix employs some effective imagery (Lori describes the three of them as "an island of silence"). Young teens will enjoy the generally melodramatic tone, finding satisfaction in the revelations that occur at the end.
B. Allison Gray, South Country Library, Bellport, NY
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
