Vera Violet

February 7, 2020

DEBUT Vera Violet O'Neely comes of age surrounded by poverty, drug use, and violence. She tries to build a life for herself and her family despite all odds in a small Pacific Northwest town ravaged by logging and tourism. When there isn't an industry left to support the families in David, WA, many of them turn to crystal meth production. Vera and brother Colin cling to the hope they can change their narratives and move beyond what they were born into. Yet as Vera's tale weaves among youth, adolescence, and young adulthood, she recounts the tragedies that riddled her upbringing. Each chapter reads as a vignette, similar to Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street, but with more despair. Vera Violet eventually travels east to Montana to try to start again, but her past continues to haunt her. VERDICT Peterson's debut offers a realistic look at drug-riddled, poverty-stricken towns and lives yet is a difficult read, occasionally overwritten with near-constant metaphors and incredible sadness.--Chelsie Harris, San Diego Cty. Lib.

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 28, 2020

Gr 10 Up-Vera Violet knows what it means to be a scrapper, and it is that fighting spirit that introduces her to the boy who will ultimately become the love of her life. Survival isn't easy for adults, much less teens, in the fictionalized town of David, WA. Timber money is drying up, poverty is rampant, and drugs are both a means of escape and a source of income. The violent arrest of her boyfriend for a murder he didn't commit propels Vera to St. Louis, where she juxtaposes the poverty and hopelessness of her own community with the challenges of the Black students in the elementary school in which she temporarily works. Vera narrates this atmospheric treatise, with a meandering description of life, love, and loss in the state's Olympic Peninsula. Peterson's life experience in the area accurately portrays the hopelessness and poverty of a region that has a tragic underbelly belied by the glamour conferred on it by Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" series. Plagued by a ponderous pace and multiple metaphors strung together, this niche novel graphically explores violence, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual abuse of minors, and generational poverty with a verbosity that will take a toll on all but the most persistent teen. VERDICT An additional purchase for collections in need of young adult fiction addressing poverty and similar societal issues.-Jodeana Kruse, R.A. Long High School, Longview, WA

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.