Flannery by Lisa Moore

Sixteen-year-old Flannery Malone lives in Newfoundland with her artist mother and younger brother. Her mother is loving but incapable of adequately taking care of the financial needs of the family, which includes not having enough money to buy Flannery's biology book. Her best friend, Amber, has ditched Flannery for an abusive, awful boyfriend. And Flannery had a crush on her old childhood pal, Tyrone O'Rouke, who has grown into a bit of bad-boy/heart-throb and rarely attends school. So Flannery is thrilled when she is paired with Tyrone for a Entrepreneurship class project. But having a partner who doesn't come to class often and often misses meetings means that Flannery has to do all the work on the project: to market and sell love potions.

As I think back on Flannery by Lisa Moore, I am not sure why I liked the book as much as I did. Perhaps it is because Flannery is such a kind, thoughtful person who keeps getting dumped on but she remains positive and upbeat. Perhaps it is because the drama of the book seems realistic to the kind of situations students face today: friends who abandon friends because of a boy (or girl); partners who do no work on class projects but want credit; parents who love their children but seem incapable of taking care of the needs of their children; pointless and mean-spirited bullying; teens finding new friends who have similar interests only after some traumatic event gives them pause to think and notice.

Several reviewers commented on how Moore abandoned the use of punctuation, especially quotation marks which is a narrative style which alternately draws the reader in closer but makes the action seem a little further off. I am usually put-off when authors abandon punctuation but I don't remember it, so I don't think it detracts from the story. I hope readers will root for Flannery, like I did, and should cheer for her throughout this touching coming-of-age book.