Another Life Altogether

November 9, 2009
Jesse Bennett, the 13-year-old heroine of Beale’s charming debut, longs to escape the humdrum life of Britain’s East Yorkshire. Stuck in a small town with her unstable mother and ineffectual father, Jesse wants to see the world, but her hopes of breaking free are dashed when her mother attempts suicide and her father, reasoning that a “change of scene” will help his wife recover, moves the family farther into the country. But the people of rural Midham are less than welcoming to the strange new arrivals. Eventually, Jesse falls in with Tracey and Amanda, the toughest and most feared girls in town, though with this security comes increased scrutiny: Jesse must pretend to be just like her mates, and even though she cares nothing for clothes or boys and despises the meanness, she develops a crush on Amanda that threatens to end unfavorably. Beale’s lively narrative captures, with touching accuracy, the plights of adolescence; if the novel sometimes veers toward the saccharine and relies on less than surprising plot twists, Jesse’s affirming arc offers hope in a place where it’s in very short supply.

January 1, 2010
British teenager learns about acceptance, otherness and hope.

Beale sets her seriocomic first novel in East Yorkshire during the 1970s. Thirteen-year-old Jesse's bipolar mother Evelyn attempts suicide, then spends time in the local mental hospital. Jesse pretends her mother has gone away on a cruise; when the truth emerges, she's mocked by her classmates. In search of a fresh start, her ineffectual father moves the family to the village of Midham, where Jesse is astonished to be taken up by mean girl Tracey, who enjoys abusing the other pupils at Liston Comprehensive. When Jesse strikes up a friendship with fellow bookworm Malcolm, Tracey scornfully informs her that he's"the biggest bloody poofter in all Yorkshire." Jesse, guiltily enamored of Tracey's older sister Amanda and desperate to appear normal, doesn't defend Malcolm at first. Her turning point comes when she finally stands up for him and in the process exposes her feelings for Amanda. A personal crisis follows, but Jesse comes through, assisted by friends, family, a role model at school and the promise of the future. A streak of farcical humor leavens the overlong, repetitive text, which heavily underscores its less-than-revelatory themes: the consequences of mental illness, the need to be true to your own nature, the damage done to children who must parent helpless adults.

Obvious messages painted with very broad brushstrokes make this earnest coming-of-age tale most suitable for unsophisticated young-adult readers.

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December 15, 2009
Jesse Bennett briefly escapes into her own world when her mother is admitted into a mental hospital after a suicide attempt. With an elaborately woven epistolary cover, she places her mother on an around-the-world cruise, ostensibly won through a Corn Flakes competition. Word in her small East Yorkshire village travels, though, and Jesse's lie is soon shattered, as is her carefully manufactured life. Beale ("Murder in the Castro" and winner of the 2007 "Poets & Writers" California Writers Exchange contest) tackles the dynamics of an extended family drama, a young woman's confusion, secrecy, and pressure, and the moral dilemmas Jesse faces daily in her struggle to become a fully realized person. VERDICT Grappling with issues of sexual identity, mental illness, family conflict, and adolescent angst that lie below the surface, this novel will appeal to all readers.Julie Kane, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.