Drowning Is Inevitable

July 13, 2015
Seventeen-year-old Olivia has always existed in her drowned mother’s shadow: living in her mother’s bedroom-turned-shrine, wearing her clothes, saving mementos of her, acting reckless like her, letting her senile grandmother call her by her mother’s name, and waiting for her 18th birthday when she’ll surpass her mother’s age when she died. Fortunately she has her boyfriend, Max, and friends Jamie and Maggie, who understand her thanks to the unhappy parts of their own lives. After a deadly altercation with Jamie’s drunken father, the foursome panic, flee their Louisiana town, and hide from the police in New Orleans. Olivia would do anything to protect Jamie, but their plan leads down a path she cannot save him from, though she does find a way to restart her own life. Told from Olivia’s insightful point of view, debut author Stanley’s novel about loss and unconditional friendship suffers from an overdramatic plot. While the story is moving and ambitious, Stanley doesn’t believably tie the novel’s two main story threads together, and it further digresses with an extended stay in a crack house and a drug deal gone bad. Ages 14–up. Agent: Kate McKean, Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.

July 1, 2015
The dance between loss and longing binds Olivia to the ghost of her teen mother in Stanley's debut novel. Her addled grandmother calls Olivia only by her mother's name, Lillian, and her heartbroken father cannot bear her eerie resemblance. In quiet St. Francisville, Louisiana, where townspeople trace her every move, Olivia yearns to be seen as her own person. Boy-next-door Jamie, fearless Maggie, and on-and-off beau Max are the few friends that see Olivia instead of Lillian. At 17, Olivia's only concern is outliving her mother. After a fatal encounter at Jamie's house, the quartet flees to New Orleans for peace and refuge, and Olivia shifts her focus from continuing to live to saving her freedom. The anxious journey defines their friendship, identities, and lives. Stanley submerges a whirlwind of teenage emotion into a satisfying and steady plot. Olivia's voice embodies the teen crisis of self-discovery and the pain of life's unanswered questions. Readers will enjoy the realism of the novel as the characters gain agency in believable ways. Anyone who has endured familial strife will appreciate Olivia and her friends. Realistic yet hopeful-a wide array of readers will enjoy this atmospheric book. (Fiction. 14-18)

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July 1, 2015

Gr 9 Up-Seventeen-year-old Olivia and her friends are bound together by love, loss, and their refusal to follow the path that fate seems to have chosen for them. Olivia's mother, Lillian, committed suicide on her 18th birthday, just after Olivia was born. Olivia lives in her mother's shadow, in her room, in her clothes; she resembles her mother so much that her grandmother calls her Lillian and her father avoids her. She gains her strength from her soul mate, Jamie, who lives with a violent, alcoholic father; her sometime-boyfriend Max, who is expected to follow in his lawyer-father's footsteps; and the multitalented Maggie, who is ready to escape Louisiana for the artistic possibilities of New York City. The limits of their friendship and loyalty are tested when Jamie and his father clash. Tragedy strikes, and the foursome prove just how far they will go to help those they love. The teens take off for New Orleans, dodging the police and planning their ultimate escape, never knowing who they can or should trust. Although there is plenty of action and suspense, including scenes of drug use and sexual encounters, this is truly an emotional book of family bonds and teen relationships, the power of parental influence, and of fate. VERDICT A well-written debut for teens who enjoy realistic fiction with a focus on the bonds of friendship.-MaryAnn Karre, West Middle School, Binghamton, NY

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2015
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Olivia's 18-year-old mother Lillian walked into the river when baby Olivia was only days old, and Olivia's father and grandmother never recovered. As Olivia approaches that same milestone birthday, her delicate universecomprised of next-door neighbor BFF Jamie, artsy Maggie, and boyfriend-in-waiting Maxviolently spirals out of control and down the road to New Orleans. In her debut novel, Stanley pours her heartfelt devotion to her young main characters onto every page via Olivia's first-person voice of grit and conviction. Each dysfunctional family member dramatically moves Olivia and her friends' understanding of their circumstances forward as well as changes their mindsets so that they might avoid growing up as victims of these damaged past lives. Shady adult accomplices, methodical law enforcement, and media coverage balance the itinerant pace of the fugitive teens' escapade. It won't be easy: drowning was inevitable for Lillian; Olivia's grandmother believes that Olivia is Lillian; and her father is beyond reach in her life thus far. And yet Stanley's gentle touch creates a sanctuary for her characters to develop and ensures the reader that yes, Olivia is our narrator and should be trusted to tell her own grave and stirring tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)