A Brand New Address

Review for A BRAND NEW ADDRESS
A BRAND NEW ADDRESS is a quirky coming-of-age story taking place during Earth’s 22nd-century Second Ice Age. Plucky heroine, Yardley Van Dyke, faces a fiendish combination of family tensions, personal insecurities, and life-threatening cold. She is a teenager with whom any reader can identify.
The story tells parallel, multi-layered stories about Yardley, Marchand, her twin brother, and their companions. They experience the typical laughs, anxieties, and ups and downs of everyday life. Their trajectories, though, are riddled with moments of deathly seriousness as they are forced to confront the realities of Earth’s dwindling resources and the grave dangers of space travel. Caught between her attachment to her greenhouse in frigid California and her desire to join suave, intrepid Marchand LaFond on the intergalactic adventure of a lifetime, Yardley blossoms as a person, flourishes as an intellectual, and is physically transplanted to a new environment – as is her beloved vegetable garden.
A BRAND NEW ADDRESS mirrors both the wisdom and the awkwardness of teens with diverse personalities. In different ways Yardley and Marchand fight against the uglier aspects of human nature. Some are corrupt such as octogenarian CEO, her right hand man, and two unsavory jailbirds. Yardley and Marchand shield innocent young sisters who suddenly lose both parents. A BRAND NEW ADDRESS does not shy away from the sobering tragedies, the terrifying uncertainties, or the unfair nature of many of the challenges faced by both youths and adults. But far from a simple cautionary tale, A BRAND NEW ADDRESS is also a satisfying love story, an erudite romp through space, and a courageous call to protect the soaring potential of the human spirit.