Small Damages
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1.0 • 1 Rating
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Juno meets Under the Tuscan Sun
It's senior year, and while Kenzie should be looking forward to prom and starting college in the fall, she discovers she's pregnant. Her determination to keep her baby is something her boyfriend and mother do not understand. So she is sent to Spain, where she will live out her pregnancy, and her baby will be adopted by a Spanish couple. No one will ever know.
Alone and resentful in a foreign country, Kenzie is at first sullen and difficult. But as she gets to know Estela, the stubborn old cook, and Esteban, the mysterious young man who cares for the horses, she begins to open her eyes, and her heart, to the beauty that is all around her, and inside her. Kenzie realizes she has some serious choices to make--choices about life, love, and home.
Lyrically told in a way that makes the heat, the colors, and the smells of Spain feel alive, Small Damages is a feast for the heart and the soul, and a coming-of-age novel not easily forgotten.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As Kenzie's senior year of high school begins, her beloved father dies suddenly. Her mother's coping mechanisms pack his things, start a business, join Match.com push Kenzie closer to her friend Kevin, and by spring, she's pregnant. Kenzie's mother's response (which feels more 1896 than 1996, when the story is set) is to arrange for Kenzie to move to a bull farm in southern Spain, where she'll work until the baby is born and given up for adoption. The wrinkle in this soulless plan is that Kenzie is conflicted; her story is written as a tender, honest letter to her unborn child. Kenzie arrives in Spain sullen and resentful she's chopping onions with Estela, the farm's cook, while her friends are at the Jersey Shore and the distance brings her predicament into sharp relief. Estela is a better mother than her biological one; Esteban, the teen in charge of horses, a more standup guy than Yale-bound Kevin. This beautifully written "summer of transformation" story will have readers feeling as torn about Kenzie's choice as she is. Ages 14 up.
Customer Reviews
Flat protagonist, no character development in general
Spoiler alert
Not once in the entire novel did I actually she believe she was going to give her baby up for adoption. Throughout the novel, she refuses to handle her relationship with her mother, father of her baby or adopted parents. She allows herself to be taken care of, and this does not change at the end of the novel. This novel would have been better set 9 months before when her farther dies. At least then there would have been a climax.