Again Again

Starred review from April 1, 2020

Gr 7-10-What if falling in love had infinite possibilities and multiple universes exist? Adelaide Buchwald lives with her teacher father at Alabaster, a boarding school, and walks the five dogs of teachers who are away for the summer. She also must complete a class project to remove herself from academic probation after a disastrous junior year. Miserable after her breakup with Mikey Double L and missing her mother and brother who have remained at their family home because of her brother's addiction issues, Adelaide finds she is not all that inclined to do the make-up work. Chance meetings with different boys result in flights of fancy and scenarios of attraction, rejection, and friendship. The question of reality versus imagination is not always easy to determine; but in these multiverse stories, Adelaide slowly comes to terms with family, herself, and ultimately, different kinds of love. Lockhart's latest book highlights her creativity in both writing and format. Different fonts and typeface help the reader determine reality from fantasy-or does it? This is a thoughtful book of infinite possibilities. Adelaide is a delightful character who makes the plot completely believable in all the worlds in which she exists. VERDICT A lyrical read that's also fun as it addresses myriad truths.-Janet Hilbun, University of North Texas, Denton

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2020
A rising senior's summer follows diverging romantic trajectories in parallel timelines. Adelaide Buchwald is spending the summer dogsitting for her teachers at Alabaster Prep, an elite New England boarding school--and processing both her recent breakup and her brother Toby's opioid addiction. Soon she runs into Jack Cavallero, a boy who wrote a poem about her two years prior--"She contains / contradictions," he wrote--and whom she's idealized ever since. The narrative then breaks into several possibilities of how their relationship might progress. Adelaide also works to complete a set design for Sam Shepard's Fool for Love to save a failing grade from the previous year and tremulously starts to rebuild her bond with her brother despite her feelings of betrayal after the pain his addiction has caused the family. In addition to the fractured timelines, Adelaide's narrative voice occasionally fractures with added line breaks when her emotions are most heightened. Adelaide is white, Jewish, and on reduced tuition at the largely wealthy and WASP-y Alabaster; Jack is olive-skinned, and several secondary characters are racially diverse. What begins as a typical YA romance becomes a thoughtful exploration of the expectations Adelaide places on herself and others; in each timeline, she must confront her own fears and shortcomings. Toby's addiction is sensitively portrayed; the sibling relationship emerges as the true heart of this story in any timeline. A thoughtfully subversive exploration of the diverging pathways of the human heart. (Fiction. 14-18)

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Starred review from March 15, 2020
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* This story takes place in a number of worlds. But mostly in two. Lockhart's moving, high-concept novel follows Adelaide Buchwald through numerous different variations of the summer after her junior year as she misses her ex-boyfriend, falls for someone new, and processes the trauma of her brother's drug addiction. Starting with Adelaide's meet-cute with Jack at the dog park, the story branches into multiple possible worlds. In some, their relationship ends there after a disastrous conversation. In others, they start seeing each other around campus and grow closer, with each new encounter spawning new variations. In all of these different worlds, Adelaide starts talking again to her brother Toby, now out of rehab, and struggles to forgive him despite her grief and anger. If this sounds confusing, it isn't; it's surprisingly easy to follow the main story, the variation to which Lockhart devotes the most time. (The wonderfully illuminating Part IV gets the second-most time.) Font changes and spatial cues delineate the other worlds as variations on a theme, with Adelaide's inner life as the fulcrum around which the story spins. The variations all work together to tell the story of a messy, normal life where connecting authentically with others is perilously hit-or-miss but worth the heartache for what you learn about yourself.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Lockhart nabbed a Printz Honor for The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (2008), hit best-seller lists with We Were Liars (2014), and never does the same thing twice. Readers will be all over her latest.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

May 4, 2020
Lockhart returns to Alabaster Preparatory Academy—the setting for The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks—to tell the story of a different character. Adrift and languorous in the summer between her junior and senior years, Adelaide Buchwald navigates the aftermath of an unexpected breakup, at least one potential new romance, and a wrenching situation with her brother. Her daily routine revolves around her job walking dogs belonging to vacationing faculty members and working to fend off academic probation by completing a set design project. Lockhart takes her penchant for plot twists to a new level, with a narrative that explores the idea of the multiverse, those infinite worlds loosed by paths taken and not taken. Key scenes are imagined and then reimagined, laying out an iterative feast of ideas about art, possibility, and the creative process for readers hungry for big concepts. Others will simply luxuriate in the storytelling: Adelaide’s ups and downs, the sweetly individual personalities of the dogs she walks, and the dreamy atmosphere of the nearly deserted summertime campus. Ages 12–up. Agent: Elizabeth Kaplan, Elizabeth Kaplan Literary.