Dear TBR:
I really dislike when I discover a traditionally published Big 5 middle grade book I’ve heard nothing about. Don’t get me wrong, a new book is always a joy, in a way – but in another way, it’s kind of disturbing. Brief research into the film director and novelist who combined to write this would suggest it should have had much more buzz, but the truth is that middle grade gets overcrowded and 2019, when this book was published was a very prolific year for buzzy middle grade publications. At any rate, it was nice to find a wholly new-to-me book that was both touching, funny, and was the reading comp I was looking for.
Bett is named after her maternal grandmother, Betty. Bett with two-t’s is… a firecracker like her namesake – out to grab the world and take it on. She swims, she camps, she surfs, she skis – she takes risks and seeks thrills and would live outside with animals if possible. She gets it from her father, who, after the death of his partner, Phillip, when Bett was just a baby, taught her that life is short, and to grab it with both hands. That’s why when Bett’s dad falls in love, he falls all the way in. The new beau has a daughter just like he does – same age and everything. So, why shouldn’t they be friends? Why shouldn’t they be sisters? Why shouldn’t their first introduction to each other be in the same cohort at summer camp? What could possibly go wrong?
Avery is circumspect, studious and smart – and very much an indoor cat like the father who raised her. Surrounded on all sides by her with adult support staff in the form of nannies and tutors, her father has tried to supply both father and mother, since Avery’s mother is a busy playwright she’s never even met – he’s made sure of that. Avery has asthma, rampant anxiety, especially about large bodies of water and dogs, insomnia, social insecurities galore, and a near-fascination with germs and hygiene. When she is contacted by a girl letting her know that her father is seeing someone, she is first dubious, then cautious – what if this girl is part of some elaborate financial scam!? – and then she’s a horrified that this wildly creative girl whose emails are rife with spelling errors – this is the girl that her father expects her to be best friends with? Nevertheless, she’s polite. Avery does her best to be polite, even when being joined at her favorite summer camp by a girl she definitely didn’t expect.
This book is both charming and hilarious, and the personalities of the girls shine through their letters and writing style – Bett making spelling errors and shrugging, Avery almost visibly wincing. Grandma Betty’s yearning for a life bigger than what she’s found as a retiree in Texas reads as legit, as do the unspoken ambitions and needs of the other adults in the book. Though those are solely shown rather than discussed, this is clearly a book about children and the ways in which their lives are intersected with an essentially controlled by their adults. Some of what’s here would not be obvious to a younger reader not as adept at reading between the lines, but it adds ballast to the girls’ personalities, as they know their adults and read them well, and try to explain them to each other. Romances – friendships – and relationships of all kinds wax and wane throughout the narrative, reflecting the natural ways people go in and out of each other’s lives.
There’s a lot to love about this novel, with its high concept yet heartfelt plot, though it does have its small criticisms. I did wish that Bett’s characterization wasn’t so much dialed to ‘does-what-she-wants sassy’ and leaving out the biracial part of her identity. While the Brazilian part of Bett’s family was her surrogate, her father is listed as African American, as is Grandma Betty. Bett mentions once that she’s alone as a girl of color at the chi-chi summer camp where the girls are sent… and that’s it. I can’t imagine her adults wouldn’t take some aspects of Black culture as a part of their lives together. The paperback cover shows her with a small cloud of curly hair, but though she’s on her own all summer, she never does her hair – it’s not mentioned as anything she has to take time and care with, though Avery mentions that it’s curly. It comes across as if Bett’s dad is a hunky, impulsive gay himbo who works in pool construction – blue collar work – and he’s taken up with a wealthy white architect, the type of person builders, Bett explains, usually fight with. It’s also notable how much the men cry, which veered closest to cliché than any other part of the book I read. The inevitable book-ending wedding aside, this is a love story on several levels – between consenting adults, of course, but also between two girls who choose friendship and its vicissitudes and themselves most of all over whatever their parents, teachers, camp staff, and other friends plan for them – which is a triumph of its own. Self-determination, self-awareness, and in the end, selflessness make all the difference. I’m glad I read this book.
Fresh onto the TBR:
- To Ride a Rising Storm, Monoquill Blackgoose
- Books & Bewitchment, Isla Jewell
- The Merciful Crow, Margaret Evans
Until the next book, 📖
Still A Constant Reader
