Susin Nielsen
This book was a fun read, and I had trouble putting it down! However, many serious and timely topics are discussed throughout the story. The two main characters are Stewart and Ashley, and the chapters switch between their voices. Stewart and Ashley are total opposites: She is vain, struggles with schoolwork, popular, and can be cruel, while Stew is so smart he has skipped a grade, is very caring, and struggles with his social life. They are thrown together in the most dramatic of ways: their parents fall in love and so they have to blend families when their parents move in together.
Anyone can connect with these two, as we see Ashley struggle with changes in high school friendships, the complicated world of boys and her emerging sexuality, and dealing with her parent's divorce and her father's coming out as a gay man. Stewart is trying to understand the death of his mother and how his family will ever move on without her, and also trying to fit in and navigate friendships in high school. All of these heavy situations is treated with humor (I caught myself screaming out loud in parts), and an empathy for all the characters that makes us feel what they are going through. Not many authors can "get" middle and high school lives, but Susin Nielsen does.
Anyone can connect with these two, as we see Ashley struggle with changes in high school friendships, the complicated world of boys and her emerging sexuality, and dealing with her parent's divorce and her father's coming out as a gay man. Stewart is trying to understand the death of his mother and how his family will ever move on without her, and also trying to fit in and navigate friendships in high school. All of these heavy situations is treated with humor (I caught myself screaming out loud in parts), and an empathy for all the characters that makes us feel what they are going through. Not many authors can "get" middle and high school lives, but Susin Nielsen does.