By Mary Penney
Amazon rating: 3.6/5.0, grades 3-7
Good Reads: 3.79/5
Common Sense Media: Not Reviewed
4Rbooks: 3/6, Grades 6-8
246 pages
Synopsis:
Macy Hollinquest doesn’t like change, but her life seems to be in constant turmoil. She’ll be starting 7th grade at the middle school in a week or two, but without her best friend Twee who is one year younger. Her grandmother passed away and the coffee shop she owned has been sold to a new owner. She and her mother do not seem to agree on anything. And her father is working on a special project for the military and hasn’t been home in months. She’ll be turning 12 in a couple of days but doesn’t want to celebrate unless her father is there.
Macy finally decides to take matters into her own hands and plans a road trip to visit her dad. With the help of the local delinquent with a heart of gold, an older woman who is dealing with tragic losses, and the new owner of the coffee shop, Macy begins a journey of discovery. A journey that made lead to answers for all her questions, answers she may or may not be ready to handle. Along the way Macy sends letters to her new 6th grade teacher providing him with insights into her life.
Parental Guidance: high
Switch steals newspapers and cigars.
Macy has a couple of inner dialogues regarding her bust size.
Macy plans her trip to visit her dad without telling her mother.
Switch, an underage teenager, borrows Ginger’s motorcycle with a side car
to take Macy to her dad. They go off together on a 2-hour plus journey.
The one religious person in the story is presented as a kook.
Macy lies repeatedly throughout the story to cover her scheme.
Alcoholism is one of the major themes.
The new owner of the coffee shop, Chuck, had a life partner named Philip.
Recommendation:
Though Macy is only 11 and just finished sixth grade, I would never use this book in an elementary classroom and wouldn’t recommend it for an elementary library. It is a definite tween book. Too mature for elementary but not mature enough to be a true YA novel. Middle school girls would be the target audience, and I would recommend parents read it first and be ready to discuss the themes and plot.
I did like many elements within the story, and I thought it had relatable and realistic inner dialogue, for Macy, though more mature than most 11-year-olds.I think this would have been more realistic if she was 12, about to become a teenager, and heading to middle school.
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