The Bulletin Review
July 19, 2010 at 10:30 pm
The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
A positive pregnancy test marks a crossroads in the life of sixteen-year-old Sydney, but before she even gets a chance to confess to her mother, her other offenses cause her to be shipped off for a month-long canoe trip in the Canadian wilderness in hopes that the experience will straighten her out. Sydney figures that’s just a small blip in her plans that still gives her time for a first-trimester abortion upon her return, if she can amass the money, but the journey becomes much more than a simple diversion. Accompanied by her best friend, Natalia, who’s discovered her own recent family secret (Natalia herself was the child of a teen pregnancy, born to the woman she’d been raised to consider her sister, Sydney begins to shed her old self and find a new Sydney – who still faces the same dilemma as the old. De Gramont’s prose glides along with superb fluidity, while Sydney’s narration offers both sharp perception and authentic limitation. The characters are believably restricted by Sydney’s view (a fact she herself realizes when considering the boy who got her pregnant), but they have depth and originality, and the growing formation of the motley crew of canoeists into a kind of tribe is subtle but believable. Particularly interesting is Sydney’s changing relationship with Mick, the youthful offender who’s taking the trip as a form of rehab: Mick is frightening and obnoxious, yet capable of genuine support for Sydney, and, whether she likes it or not, he matters to her. The situation also provides a believable opportunity for exploration of the various futures that lie before Sydney depending on the choice she makes, and her path is genuinely uncertain for much of the book. Sydney’s situation is one that looms over many readers, and they’ll be moved by her experience and enlightened by her reflections as she struggles to make a decision.
Kirkus Review: Every Little Thing in the World
March 10, 2010 at 10:29 pm
A deft and poignant exploration of reproductive choices. In spite of informative sex-education classes at her private school in New Jersey, 16-year-old Sydney Biggs gets pregnant with a boy she barely knows from a nearby, less-affluent town. Her best friend, the “lean, sleek, and raven-haired” Natalia Miksa, is the only one she tells. When the girls are caught by the police for ostensibly stealing Natalia’s parents’ car to sneak out to a party, Sydney’s angry and worried mother sends her to live with her rigid (anti–processed-food) father, who thinks that a month at a wilderness adventure camp, canoeing on a lake in Ontario, will be good for her. She’s part of a group of eight campers, including Natalia, a tattooed “Youth at Risk” and two young counselors. De Gramont’s compelling coming-of-age story, often poetic, compassionately probes the dilemma of and complex choices surrounding Sydney’s pregnancy. As told from Sydney’s point of view in an authentic adolescent voice, her growing self-awareness of “what’s discovered after losing your way” is both moving and hopeful.
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