Fall for Anything

Starred review from November 15, 2010
A once-famous photographer has committed suicide, and 17-year-old Eddie, his only daughter, desperately wants to know why. In this episodic, almost stream-of-consciousness story, she also will cope with a lifelong friend who may become a boyfriend—or perhaps her father's student will become her savior. Adding to her pain is Eddie's nearly comatose mother, whose obnoxious friend has moved in, determined to put things right. However, the plot, although strong enough to keep the pages turning, does not dominate. Instead, the novel examines a wounded personality. Summers unzips Eddie's skin, crawls inside and stays there. Her prose inhabits Eddie's character so convincingly that readers may suspect the book may stem from experience. One can't deny the author's courage in making risky artistic choices. She offers not a cerebral understanding but the raw experience of Eddie's pain and uncertainty. Readers may find the book fascinating or mesmerizingly melancholy depending on their moods, but there is no denying that Summers has brought Eddie's intense experience into the world of her readers. An unusual, bold effort that deserves attention. (Fiction. 14 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2011

Gr 9 Up-Seventeen-year-old Eddie Reeves's father, a once-famous photographer, commits suicide by jumping off the roof of an abandoned warehouse. Seth Reeves left a note saying only that he loved Eddie and her mother, Robyn, but that he had to leave. As Eddie grapples with the question of why, she finds comfort in her best friend, Milo, until his ex-girlfriend moves back to town and drives a wedge between them. Then Eddie meets Culler Evans, her father's student and protege, with whom she immediately feels a romantic connection as well as a shared sense of loss. Culler discovers that some photographs Seth left in his studio are numbered, like a map, with a fragmented message at each location. Ignoring Milo's disapproval, Eddie and Culler set out on a road trip to each building to put the puzzle together. This novel convincingly captures the feelings of confusion, isolation, and anger that accompany losing a loved one to suicide, along with the implicit desire to hold the victim accountable for the sadness he's caused. Eddie's tendency to use strong language and make hyperbolic statements reflects her age and the intensity of the tragedy she's experienced. Beth, Robyn's bossy and Botoxed best friend, is the only weak character in this otherwise expertly crafted novel about the quest for peace after a death in the family. Jandy Nelson's The Sky Is Everywhere (Dial, 2010) is a similar story of a grieving girl pulled between two young men as she struggles to find peace and move on.-Amy Pickett, Ridley High School, Folsom, PA

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2010
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Eddies father, a brilliant but reclusive photographer, has killed himself, and Eddie is struggling for answers far beyond the one-line note her father left behind. Each night, she sneaks out her window, down the roof, and away from home. Sometimes she hangs out with her friend Milowith whom she has trouble connecting since the suicidebut most often she goes to the old, abandoned warehouse where her father ended his life, wandering in the dark and looking for something to explain his actions. What she finds there is Culler, a photography student of her fathers, who is also searching for answers and whom Eddie latches onto as a last hope for understanding. Culler shows Eddie what he has discoveredher dads initials carved into a door at the warehousethen leads her on a quest to find more markings and messages, stalking the desolate places where her father took his final photographs. This novel is mysterious, romantic, and excruciating in its suspense, as both the reader and Eddie know that something is not quite right for a long time before the pieces fall into place. And fall they do, in an emotional culmination that shakes Eddie to the core. Both hauntingly written and compulsively readable, this will be a fast favorite with readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)