When Marcie and her parents for the New Hampshire for the summer she has no idea that everything in her life is about to be turned upside-down. When her father admits that he is gay and in love with a man everything changes. Now she and her mother are living on the East Coast away from her boyfriend, Linus, and her group of friends, The Leftovers, and Marcie is miserable and lonely.
The first half of this delightful coming-of-age book, Love and Leftovers by Sarah Tregay, is set in New Hampshire, the second half Marcie is back in Boise. Told in verse Love and Leftovers is a very believable book about first love and the complexities of high school relationships. Marcie, who often behaves like a teenager, not in compliance with the wishes of adults, is a sympathetic character grappling with issues related to her parents and their problems, and how to navigate uncharted waters of attraction to and attention from the opposite sex. The story moves along at a quick clip due to the terrific poetry.
"In both of my classes
my teachers sound like
the one in the Peanuts cartoons,
talking gibberish.
Because all I can hear
all afternoon
is my heartbeat
thumping out its new mantra
Love dub/love dub
Love dub/love dub
Love dub/love dub" -p. 413
I'm sure that fans of Ellen Hopkins and Sonya Sones books will delight in this book. Some readers may be put off because the book looks so long at 432 pages until they realize how much white space there is on each page. But, as the reviewer for Kirkus Reviews says, there is a lot of depth in between all that white space. I'm guessing that this book will fly off the library shelves and that readers will tell their friends about it. It is that good.
I do so like Ellen Hopkins. I will have to check this one out. It sounds fantastic!
ReplyDeleteI'm not always sold on lyric books but this does sound like a great read. I might have to give it a try. Thanks for your review!
ReplyDeleteSounds interesting! I've never read a novel written in verse before.
ReplyDeleteSue