When We Were Infinite

January 15, 2021
High school senior Beth Claire knows what it's like to lose someone you love. Ever since her White father left, after her parents' divorce, Beth has blamed her Chinese American mother for the end of their marriage. Striving not to repeat her mother's mistakes, Beth does her best to be someone who is wanted and needed by those around her, especially her four closest friends, Brandon, Grace, Jason, and Sunny. She cherishes the closeness of their group and wants nothing more than for them all to stay tightly bonded through the year and even beyond graduation. Then Beth and Brandon accidentally witness Jason's father assaulting him. Jason brushes off the violence, but Beth is devastated by the realization that she was unaware of her friend's family situation. She becomes anxious when she and her friends are unable to devise a way to help Jason. The story is told retrospectively by an older Beth, whose tenderness toward her younger self contrasts with high school Beth's critical and self-effacing demeanor. Her desire to be enough--competent enough, Chinese enough, accommodating enough--is described with the clarity of hindsight and vivid emotion, particularly when it comes to Jason, who was able to see past Beth's carefully cultivated mildness to understand her in a way that the others do not. Brandon, Grace, Jason, and Sunny are all Asian American; Sunny is pansexual. Beautifully, achingly cathartic. (resources) (Fiction. 13-18)

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 15, 2021
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* In her senior year of high school, Beth can count on two things: her close-knit friend group and her love of the violin. Both are threatened when she witnesses friend and bandmate Jason being physically assaulted by his own father. The friends rally to aid one of their own, but none of them truly understands how to save Jason from his family's legacy of violence. As Jason spirals downward, he makes a fateful decision to end his suffering permanently. He survives, but his despair and anger spread outward like a contagion, endangering the friends' futures. Gilbert is exceptional at presenting the nuanced and complex lives of American teenagers, especially Asian American teens. As in 2018's Picture Us in the Light, Gilbert draws readers into the characters slowly, showcasing the dynamics they share with each other and their families. Family is at the center of the novel, with the book's conceit being the intergenerational transmission of immigrant parents' hopes--realized and not--onto their children. This is done with an astonishing level of empathy, even as the subject matter delves into violence, suicide, and racism. Gilbert is a master writer in the YA arena, and this book adds to her impressive oeuvre.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.