Girlhearts
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Some families you’re born into, some you have to find for yourself
Sarabeth Silver knows that her mom is different. Jane Silver is younger, prettier, harder working, and poorer—making just enough money cleaning houses for her and Sarabeth to live in a little trailer. It’s always been just the two of them, but when tragedy suddenly strikes, Sarabeth will have to figure things out on her own.
Sarabeth has never known either of her parents’ families, who refused to help when Jane got pregnant at sixteen. Is it worth trying to find them after they rejected her parents so long ago? She knows her friends would be willing to help, but how can she lean on them when what she really wants is the open hearts of relatives she’s not even sure exist? And if they are out there, how will they feel about Sarabeth after all these years?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Exploring the aftermath of a family tragedy, this contemporary problem novel provides the intense psychological drama Mazer fans crave, but lacks the suspenseful edge of her After the Rain and Out of Control. The opening chapters will instantly command readers' sympathy and rapt attention, as narrator Sarabeth describes her young, widowed mother's heart attack and subsequent death. The pace slows considerably after the initial crisis has passed and the author focuses on the 13-year-old's misery. With Sarabeth's vision blurred by grief, readers will need patience to develop a clear sense of the minor characters, among them Sarabeth's loyal girlfriends, her new friend James and the adults who decide her future. As Sarabeth is placed in the overcrowded home of her mother's best friend and assigned a social worker, Mazer conveys the heroine's feelings of shock, numbness, loneliness and powerlessness with her usual authenticity. But there are few surprises here; from the moment Sarabeth explains that her parents were essentially disowned by their families, most readers will anticipate that an encounter with these previously unmet relatives will spur Sarabeth's emotional recovery. The strength of this novel lies in its intimate recognition of the way adolescents think and feel. Ages 10-up.
