Love and Leftovers

November 28, 2011
Poems, IM conversations, and emo love songs make up Tregay’s emotionally turbulent debut novel in verse. Sophomore Marcie Foster unwillingly moves from Idaho to her mother’s childhood home in New Hampshire after her father leaves her mother for a male bartender. Marcie is resentful until she realizes the move could be a chance to remake herself, escaping the image of a “Leftover” who doesn’t fit in. When she begins a heated relationship with popular athlete J.D., cheating on Linus, her sensitive musician boyfriend back home, she questions her nonphysical relationship with Linus (“I wonder/ if my boyfriend is gay./ That would explain/ why he never once/ took off/ my/ clothes”). Seven months later Marcie returns to Idaho, and things are more confusing than ever. The formal variety of Tregay’s poems creates an immediacy that should maintain readers’ interest and sympathy for Marcie. With multiple shredded relationships and friendships, there’s more than enough angst to go around, as Marcie rages against the decisions her parents have made, as well as her own. Ages 13–up. Agent: Upstart Crow Literary.

January 1, 2012

Gr 8 Up-After bumping into her husband with his boyfriend at the grocery store, Marcie's mother decides to stay at the family's summer home in New Hampshire rather than return to Idaho with him. The teen's life is turned upside-down; she has to start over at a new school away from her friends, The Leftovers, and from her "emo-sensitive rocker" boyfriend. Things start looking up when she meets a good-looking jock who brings her breakfast and takes her to the homecoming dance. Then, when she seems to be settling in, her severely depressed mother thinks she will be better off in Boise, and Marcie is whisked back to her old life, where she comes to understand her father better and questions her relationship with her boyfriend. Told in verse, the story takes a realistic look at the emotional roller coaster that is first love. Marcie doesn't always make sensible decisions, and she hurts her boyfriend and alienates her friends, but her actions are believable. The Leftovers are an easily relatable crowd: a poetic rock-star wannabe, a manga-drawing tattooed best friend, a geeky swimmer, and a cheerful Girl Scout, to name a few. The author does a terrific job of keeping the plot moving by using poetry to her advantage. Reluctant readers will appreciate the brevity while poetic souls will appreciate the format.-Kimberly Castle-Alberts, Stark County District Library, Canton, OH

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