Where the Stars Still Shine

August 5, 2013
Not only does Callie have secrets, she is one: she and her mother have been on the run since her parents split up and her mother abducted her. Five then, 17 now, Callie has had many names, and she wears thrift-store T-shirts that transform her into “a Cowboys fan or someone who’s attended the Jenkins-Carter family reunion.” She can wash her hair in a rest area sink and take care of herself and her erratic mother. Then comes a traffic stop, and suddenly her mother is in police custody, and Callie is meeting the father she barely remembers. Doller (Something Like Normal) makes Callie believably tough, scarred, and loyal, more used to hooking up than actually dating. The setting—the tight-knit, heavily Greek community of Tarpon Springs, Fla.—is nicely specific, and although Callie’s family is a bit too perfect and the resolution of whether she will stay in Florida or return to her mother is made too easy, the pleasures of watching Callie grapple with her past, future, and a new love easily outweigh these quibbles. Ages 14–up. Agent: Kate Schafer Testerman, kt literary.

August 1, 2013
Kidnapped and dragged across the country by her mentally ill mother, Callie's never been to school or had a friend; then a routine stop for a vehicle infraction changes everything. With her mother in jail, Greg, Callie's architect father, brings her home to Tarpon Springs, Fla. It's not an easy adjustment. Greg is overjoyed, but his wife is reluctant to trust Callie, 17, with their two small sons. Callie's loving, rambunctious, Greek-American extended family does mostly embrace her, especially her cousin, Kat. The girls are the same age but years apart in life experience. With a long sexual history, Callie quickly acts on her attraction to Alex, a sponge diver. Having a real family, real friends feels good--but also like a betrayal of her mother. Without sugarcoating the impact of abuse, Doller offsets it through the abundance of what Callie's new life offers her--if she can just accept it. In teen fiction, heroines burdened with a serious problem or handicap tend to be extraordinarily gifted in other respects, as if in compensation. Callie's exceptionally exceptional: beautiful, smart, loved, welcomed by a family with the resources to supply what she needs. Realistic or not, though, knowing what she's been through, readers will root for her all the way. A moving story told with compassion and insight. (author's note) (Fiction. 14 & up)

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September 1, 2013

Gr 10 Up-Readers who appreciated the gritty realism tempered with romance in Doller's Something Like Normal (Bloomsbury, 2012) will welcome this book about a 17-year-old struggling to move beyond a traumatic past and find redemption. Callie was kidnapped at age five by her mother, Veronica, and both have been on the run ever since. Rootless and bouncing from place to place, the teen has become accustomed to loneliness. But when Veronica is finally arrested for her daughter's kidnapping, Callie's reunion with her father, Greg, is bittersweet. Left to her own devices all those years, she bristles at his attempts to establish a stable home environment and draw her into his close-knit family. He is part of a large Greek-American community in which everyone seems to know everyone and she is overwhelmed by it. Callie's competing loyalties to both parents prove trying as she grapples with creating friendships and fulfilling family expectations. Terrifying flashbacks also reveal that Callie was sexually abused as a child. She seeks solace in the arms of Alex, a local boy with a "ladies' man" reputation. Soon, their relationship develops from something steamy into enduring tenderness. Adding depth is the novel's stark contrast between Callie's itinerant, heartbreaking former life and her new one, suffused with warmth and Greek traditions. Doller gracefully handles complex issues including mental illness, parental neglect, and trauma in a respectful manner that will ring true to readers. A highly suitable choice for teens who enjoyed Erica Lorraine Scheidt's Uses for Boys (St. Martin's, 2013).-Lalitha Nataraj, Escondido Public Library, CA

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