Booklist Review: Every Little Thing in the World
March 10, 2010 at 9:43 pm
Critically acclaimed adult author de Gramont makes her YA debut in this novel of summer transformation. After 16-year-old Sydney learns that she is pregnant, she and her glamorous best friend, Natalia, try to track down the boy Sydney had sex with and end up in trouble with the police. Sydney keeps her secret from both her frustrated, divorced mother and her father, who ships her off to a Canadian summer camp. Natalia joins her, and as the girls paddle through the wilderness, they wrestle with Sydney’s options. Friction grows as Natalia speaks out against abortion and then begins a charged friendship with Mick, a troubled kid who uses the n-word and claims to have killed a man. The author writes with frank authenticity about teens: their inner and outer dialogues, their gradual self-awareness, and their puzzling choices, particularly about sex. The girls’ ultimate acceptance of Mick, for example, feels both realistic and unsettling. More than Sydney’s dilemma or the camp dynamics, though, it’s the parent-child relationships, both loving and fraught, that may resonate most with YAs.
— Gillian Engberg
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