Karin Cook's compelling first novel leaves readers with a sense of the truths and half-truths adolescent girls learn, know, and want to comprehend. Cook's lyrical novel [is] one of the most mesmerizing and moving narratives written on female adolescence, breast cancer, [and] mother-daughter relationships. -- Lesbian Review of Books
"Mama raised us to be just." Tilden, the teenaged narrator of this engaging and moving first novel, tells the story of life with her beautiful mama, Frances, who has always been a romantic spirit. Tilden and her younger sister, Elizabeth, are uprooted from Atlanta to New York when Frances, a divorce, meets Nick and they move to his home on Long Island. Tilden fears not fitting into her new environment and, indeed, on the first day of school her classmates demand to hear her "talk Southern.'' Soon, however, she has a far more wrenching problem-her mother finds a lump in her breast that proves cancerous. Despite a courageous attempt to fight her disease and Nick's valiant support, Frances slides inexorably toward death. Tilden is a gem of a character, navigating all the complexities of adolescent friendships, sibling rivalry and burgeoning sexuality while dealing with her mother's illness. The details of Frances's decline are an undercurrent to the minutiae of daily life as filtered through a young girl's perceptions. Cook writes clean and direct prose, infused with just the right amount of the aggressive innocence and lyricism with which adolescents often see the world. Only occasionally does Tilden's wisdom seem artificial, the sage intrusion of some older voice. But because Cook has firm and restrained control of her material, the novel succeeds in avoiding the clichs of its potentially melodramatic subject matter. Cook's clear eye is unclouded by false sentimentality, and her ear is keenly pitched to domestic dialogue. An auspicious debut. (Mar.)
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
YATeens will need a box full of tissues when they dive into this emotionally involving debut novel. Teetering on the brink of adolescence, narrator Tilden and her slightly younger sister Elizabeth are initially wary when their mother, a hopelessly romantic optimist, moves the small family from Atlanta to suburban Long Island to be with her new beau, Nick. Tilden has some difficulties adjusting to the changes in her life, but Elizabeth jumps right in with her new, fast crowd and never looks back. Tilden is finally beginning to feel more comfortable when she is faced with the unconquerableher mother finds a lump in her breast and fails quickly despite aggressive treatment. Cook has a deft touch in capturing the domestic dialogue of family life, the alternating innocence and wiseass cynicism of preteens, and the ache of a mother who tried to do the best for her girls. Tilden is a delightful character as she lurches through the uncertainty of constantly shifting friendships and venomous sibling spats just like any typical adolescent. Mature readers will detect the glimmer of humor under the sadness of this grieving family.Susan R. Farber, Ardsley Public Library, NY
From the Brooklyn-based Cook, an earnest coming-of-age tale featuring two sisters from Atlanta whose mother dies of breast cancerstandard first-novel fare that never provokes, never offends, and never sparks much interest, either.
Twelve-year-old Tilden has always been a quiet observer, lingering on the edge of the more vibrant world inhabited by her prettier younger sister, Elizabeth, and by Frances, their optimistic, homily-spouting, divorced mother. When Frances returns home to Atlanta from a wedding up north, Tilden watches anxiously as a flurry of romantic correspondence with a man she met there turns into yet another move. Happily, though, this journey to Nick Olsen's home on Long Island turns out to be a healthy one: Nick, the owner of a limousine service, is a good guy who helps the girls with their homework, cleans up around the house, and works hard to live up to his new role of substitute dad. The girls' adjustment to this new life would appear relatively painless, in fact, if it weren't for Frances's discovery of a lump in her breast, her subsequent mastectomy, and her lingering death over the course of Tilden's 13th yearan event that leaves the two girls with no one to look after them but bumbling Nick. This bomb dropped into the center of Tilden's life might be expected to cause some interesting shock waves, but in fact the adults who surround Tilden and Elizabeth prove so adept at helping the girls adjust to the pain of losing their beloved mother that there's little doubt they'll land on their feet. Even when Frances's no-account brother, Rand, turns up for a visit and makes a half-hearted sexual pass at Tilden, he so deeply regrets his transgression that there's nothing for the reader to sink her teeth into.
In the end, this drama remains, like its sturdy heroine, well- intentioned but bland.