Come November
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
This refreshingly original, contemporary YA debut centers on Rooney, a teen girl struggling to hold her family together in the face of her mother's delusions.It's not the end of the world, but for Rooney Harris it's starting to feel that way. It's the beginning of senior year, and her mom just lost her job. Even worse, she isn't planning to get another one. Instead, she's spending every waking moment with a group called the Next World Society, whose members are convinced they'll be leaving Earth behind on November 17. It sounds crazy to Rooney, but to her mother and younger brother it sounds like salvation. As her mom's obsession threatens to tear their lives apart, Rooney is scrambling to hold it all together. But will saving her family mean sacrificing her dreams -- or theirs?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this YA debut, van Dam offers a family-centered story that takes on faith, doubt, sibling bonds, and mental illness. High school senior Rooney and her little brother Daniel have a complicated home life. Years earlier, their mother joined the cultish Next World Society, which has predicted the end of the world on the coming November 17. According to the cult's doctrine, that's when an alien race will return to Earth to transport believers to an unsullied planet for colonization. Despite Rooney's attempts to convince her otherwise, Mom is a true believer, whose obsession with NWS has contributed to her divorce, job loss, and the family's current financial woes, which Rooney tries her best to counteract with an after-school job. The ticking clock (three months until departure) and Mom's behavior as she preps to be taken up by aliens build tension and momentum, and van Dam's portrait of Rooney, who has to act as a parent, is poignant, layered, and heroic. As November approaches and the reality of the family's dire circumstances sets in, Rooney must find a way to pull her mother, brother, and herself through in this emotional story. Ages 12 up.
