Saving Red

August 15, 2016
Fourteen-year-old Molly Rosenberg is cramming to finish her final stretch of school-imposed community service hours the first time she sees a homeless teen named Red. Unable to forget her, Molly is determined to win Red’s trust and return her to her family. As a friendship develops between the two girls (“I didn’t realize,/ until just now,/ how ridiculously starved I’ve been/ for human companionship”), Molly learns that Red suffers from schizophrenia and may need help with more than finding her way home. In this moving verse novel from Sones (To Be Perfectly Honest), Molly is motivated to save Red largely because of her guilt about her older brother, who returned home from war with PTSD and then disappeared on her watch. While Molly’s quest may have started as a diversion from her own anxiety and guilt, her relationship with Red helps her reconnect with her parents and forgive herself for her brother’s disappearance. A sweet romance and hopeful ending balance the heavy themes that propel this story, and Sones’s staccato, first-person poems sensitively trace the innocence Molly sheds as her world expands. Ages 13–up. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House.

July 15, 2016
A young teen copes with loss by helping an older, homeless teen.It's late December, and 14-year-old Molly is walking around Santa Monica in the middle of the night, filling school-assigned community-service hours. Her task is counting (not helping) homeless people for the city, but a particular homeless girl captures her imagination, and their lives entwine. Molly yearns to send 18-year-old Red back to wherever her home might be, because, as Sones slowly reveals, Molly knows what it does to a family when a child disappears. Her older brother disappeared a year ago, and she blames herself. Now she feels triggered and guilty when anyone disappears, even briefly, whether it's Red, Cristo (Molly's new, requited crush), or Pixel, Molly's emotional service dog whom she "sort of inherited" from her brother. Molly's free-verse, first-person narration is smooth and fast, though weakened by exclamation marks. Red is both zany, given to dancing in public, and mentally ill--a sort of Manic Pixie Dream Disabled Girl, especially considering Molly's conviction that Red saves her. Both Red and Molly are white; although Molly is Jewish, Christmas figures prominently, including a scary re-creation of a scene from It's a Wonderful Life. Most of Molly's innocent assumptions about Red's homelessness turn out to be true, and the conclusion leans toward wish-fulfillment. A heart-tugging, romanticized, mutual-savior story about homelessness and mental illness. (Verse fiction. 12-15)

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August 1, 2016

Gr 9 Up-A page-turning novel in verse about loss, grief, and redemption told in the voice of a wide-eyed, naive fourteen-year-old. Molly Rosenberg has been on her own for the past year, with only her service dog Pixel to ease her loneliness and frequent panic attacks. Her formerly great mother spends her days smoking medical marijuana and watching the shopping channel, and her lawyer dad has become a workaholic. The cause of this family's psychic pain is slowly revealed through the Santa Monica teen's earnest narrative. Over winter break, Molly meets a vivacious but volatile homeless girl just a few years older than herself and becomes fixated on returning Red to her family. She is also swept up in a sweet and tender crush on Christo, a handsome potential ally, who gets whisked away by his parents to New York for the holidays. Molly exhausts her wits and her resources trying to keep Red safe, and as she gains her trust, she learns the girl's story. At the same time, Molly shares her own feelings of guilt and grief over her older brother's disappearance the previous year. In the end, the mentally ill Red gets the help she needs (clearly a long, hard path lies ahead), and all of Molly's angst and trauma are neatly resolved. This work is Frank Capra-esque in its belief in the power of love to win out against all odds and even includes a homage to It's a Wonderful Life. While addressing some serious and thorny issues, this book maintains an upbeat and hopeful tone throughout, which may indeed be its saving grace. VERDICT A quick, accessible read for fans of emotional, character-driven titles that are not too gritty or despairing.-Luann Toth, School Library Journal

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2016
Grades 8-11 *Starred Review* In her latest, Sones (To Be Perfectly Honest, 2013) tackles the topic of homelessness, runaways, and mental illness in another hard-hitting, but never overly dark, novel in verse. At 14, Molly is mostly on her own; since her older brother disappeared, her father has buried himself in his work, and her mother has buried herself in a pot haze. But when Molly, in desperate need of community service hours for school, volunteers to help take Santa Monica's annual homeless count, she encounters Red, a teenager living on the streets. Spurred by a desire to get Red home to her family, Molly befriends her, even as it becomes apparent that the situation is more complicated than it seems. Sones handles these issues, especially the treatment of various kinds of mental illness, delicately, balancing them with important moments in Molly's life: a first love, longing for her missing brother, and experiences with the therapy dog that helps with her panic attacks. The ending wraps up more neatly than many of these situations often do, but this is a deeply effective look at an epidemic too infrequently addressed, and could be an invaluable resource for jumpstarting discussions. For young readers, lonely, well-meaning Molly makes for a beautiful window into the desperate futility of trying to save someone who doesn't necessarily want to be saved.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)