From Publishers Weekly
Waldman, author of the Mommy Track mystery series, here takes a more serious tack, telling the story of a young woman who battles the American legal system's inflexible drug laws. Olivia Goodman, a rebellious 22-year-old, dropped out of college as a sophomore and headed for Mexico. After she moved back to her hometown of Oakland, Calif., she was followed by Jorge Luis Rodriguez Hernandez, with whom she had a brief affair in Mexico. Jorge crossed the border illegally and is unable to find work, and Olivia feels obligated to support him. Desperate for money, Jorge is persuaded to participate in a drug deal, and Olivia's vague complicity sweeps her into an intense legal battle when she is arrested with Jorge. To make matters worse, Olivia discovers she's pregnant with Jorge's baby. As Olivia fights for her freedom, her mother, Elaine Goodman, is doubly tormented. Elaine raised Olivia on her own, but never felt she could love her enough. Now, when she has finally found happiness with a man, she is forced to choose between helping her daughter and holding on to her fiance. Waldman takes a somewhat didactic approach-U.S. drug laws are discussed at length, and the story of Elaine and Olivia's relationship can read like a case history-but Waldman's passion and affection for her characters shines through.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Waldman departs from her relatively lighthearted "Mommy Track" mysteries with this politically charged, emotionally complex novel. Olivia, in her early 20s and living with her illegally immigrated Mexican boyfriend in Oakland, CA, identifies with a number of radical causes. Her pharmacist mother, Elaine, having struggled against her tendency to be free of the burdens of motherhood almost from Olivia's birth, is about to marry her accountant boyfriend, with whom she already leads a judiciously predictable life in a middle-class Berkeley neighborhood. When Olivia's boyfriend participates in a methamphetamine deal, the young woman is arrested as an accomplice. The machinations of federal law pertaining to drug conspiracy, the use of criminal informants, a mother's lifelong connection to her child, and the hothouse of Berkeley's raised consciousness on issues from biracialism to psychotherapy to choice of street slang all come to life. The two women and the men in their lives are fully realized, with both their sympathetic and shameful motivations clearly limned and juxtaposed to create optimum tension. How Olivia copes with her unexpected pregnancy and Elaine's eventual discovery of her own ability to nurture a dependent baby resonate with credible bumps and jerks that ironically enhance the plot's smoothness. Waldman gives readers the opportunity to consider how economics, the law, social mores, and human beings' natural tendencies interact with and counteract one another.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CACopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
