Leap of Faith

August 12, 2013
In an urgent first-person narrative, 17-year old Faith recounts her grim life with her abusive, drug-addicted mother and the circumstances that motivate her to flee. Although inured to her mother’s frequent male visitors, Faith longs to save the baby her mother is carrying (for pay) for a guy that Faith considers “drug-dealing scum.” Kidnapping the newborn from the hospital, Faith drives from Ohio to Florida, determined to start a new life with baby Addy. While the challenges of infant care, combined with guilty fear, threaten to overwhelm Faith, she finds it more difficult to accept the acts of kindness, good fortune, and even romance that come her way (“I hate that some boy I don’t even know can make me feel like Addy and I have been saved”). Blair, who writes adult romance as Kelli Maine, crafts persuasive characters who have succumbed to bitterness, like Faith’s mother, as well as those who struggle to overcome hardship and tragedy and live with hope. Which path Faith will follow remains open through the novel’s hauntingly ambiguous end. Ages 14–up. Agent: Judith Ehrlich Literary Management. (Sept.)■

Starred review from July 15, 2013
A girl struggles to escape her awful life with her abusive, drug-addicted mother, stealing her newborn sister to save the baby from the same fate in this stellar debut. Sixteen-year-old Faith lives with her strung-out mother, who is acting as a surrogate for a drug dealer "friend," having his baby for $10,000. Faith sees that the baby will be condemned to the same life she has led, so she steals her mom's car and the baby, whom she names Addy, from the hospital. Calling herself Leah, she flees to Florida, where she rents a room from Chris and his father. Chris immediately adores the baby, and Faith hopes for a romance with him. She seems to have found the perfect life for herself and Addy, but she knows that her constant deception, along with kidnapping and theft charges, eventually will catch up with her. Writing from Faith's perspective, Blair delivers a wallop of a story. She focuses it on Faith's difficulties simply feeding and caring for the squalling infant, a learning curve Faith must experience alone. While the novel's realism may suffer from the idyll Faith finds so suddenly in Florida, the poignancy of her plight and the desperate sincerity of her motives easily overcome any quibbles about plausibility. Just a marvelous debut, moving and suspenseful. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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November 1, 2013

Gr 10 Up-Generous helpings of drama and romance will keep teens enthralled by this sometimes heavy-handed, often unrealistic, but always compulsively readable novel about a girl who steals a baby. Seventeen-year-old Faith can't stand her drug-addicted mother and their squalid life in Ohio. When her mother agrees to have a baby and sell it to an equally unfit couple, Faith kidnaps her half-sister and drives to Florida, where she begins to build a life for herself and baby Addy. Faith calls herself Leah, pretends to be 19, and attempts to pass Addy off as her own child. Running out of money and struggling to care for an infant, the teen is lucky to meet a kindhearted waitress who helps her find a place to live. Soon Faith finds herself drawn to the handsome and almost too-good-to-be-true son of her landlord. Chris, a roofer and musician, dotes on Addy and mostly doesn't push Faith to fill in details of her past. Before long, the boy's grandmother finds Faith a job at an Italian restaurant, and despite daycare dilemmas and troubling memories, Faith seems to have an entirely new and improved life. However, she is always looking over her shoulder, fearful of the police and newspaper articles that may reveal her true identity. While the novel does portray some of Faith's struggles, critical readers may wonder if a teen on the run with a newborn baby and very little cash would really fare so well. The past does come back to haunt Faith, of course. While some will find the conclusion unfulfilling, they will also root for Faith and Addy to find the happiness they deserve.-Miranda Doyle, Lake Oswego School District, OR

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