Me, Him, Them, and It

December 24, 2012
In this introspective first novel, Carter persuasively traces the vacillating emotions and opinions of a distraught pregnant teenager, showing how a 16-year-old mother-to-be finds the support and courage she needs to make necessary choices. Evelyn knows she has options, but she can’t imagine carrying out any of them; she’s at the top of her class, has Ivy League aspirations, and—more than anything—just doesn’t want to be pregnant. At her parents’ suggestion, Evelyn seeks temporary refuge with her aunt’s unconventional family in Chicago, but she soon realizes that hiding from her friends and the nuns at her Catholic school back home won’t make her problems disappear. She also has to face hard truths about her parents’ failing marriage, her best friend’s anger at being kept in the dark, and the father’s unwillingness to take responsibility for the unborn child. Carter doesn’t sugarcoat the pain and complications that result from Evelyn’s choice. If anything, readers are left to ponder whether there are such things as “right” decisions for girls in Evelyn’s situation. Ages 14–up. Agent: Kate McKean, Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.

January 15, 2013
A "good girl" experiences an unplanned pregnancy and its aftermath. Evelyn is a classic good girl, earning top grades and excelling in the art studio as well as on the track. When her parents start paying more attention to their acrimoniously crumbling marriage than to their daughter, she punishes them by becoming drinking, drugging, sex-having Bad Evelyn. Unfortunately, Bad Evelyn's exploits become a punishment for her, too, as her protection-free sex with Todd leads to an unplanned pregnancy. Evelyn's situation is the stuff of classic YA problem novels: What will she do about her pregnancy? How will she live with her choices? Will her heart, in fact, go on? Fearing expulsion from her competitive and deeply conservative Catholic high school, Evelyn relocates to Chicago to live with her aunts Linda and Nora and their daughters while she makes her choices and protects her GPA. Evelyn is a tough nut to crack, and she's not particularly likable, but through all her self-contradictory crabbiness and emotionally withholding fears, readers may see someone recognizably real. First-time author Carter drags her narrative out, making readers angst along with Evelyn as she chronicles every week of her pregnancy and beyond. Readers who relish self-indulgent inner monologue and expect dramatic arguments, seething resentment, tearful heartbreak, unspoken anxieties, unexpected friendships and ultimately, graceful reconciliation, will not be disappointed. (Fiction. 14-16)

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February 1, 2013

Gr 9 Up-Accomplished at cross-country, art, and academics, 16-year-old Evelyn, who attends a Catholic school in Jacksonville, Florida, downs ginger ale and hard-to-hear advice, both handed to her by Mary at Planned Parenthood. When life with her parents got too silent and miserable following her dad's return home after leaving for another woman, Evelyn decided to leave her good-girl image behind and sleep with a football player who really seemed to like her. Todd never actually becomes her boyfriend, and their relationship stays on the "down-low." Soon Evelyn finds herself pregnant with no good options and no real help from him. She doesn't even want to tell her best friend about the decisions she is facing, let alone think about attending school while she swells to smuggling-a-basketball proportions, but she can't do this alone. While Bean grows inside her, Evelyn learns how to talk, to take risks, and to forgive. Characters feel true, and the pregnancy time line helps propel readers through a difficult but rewarding journey as Evelyn's life utterly transforms. A poignant tale that is likely to appeal even to reluctant readers.-Suzanne Gordon, Lanier High School, Sugar Hill, GA

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