Jean Thesman (1929–2016)

This felt like a very young young-adult to me. Nice coming-of-age story, but also a bit frustrating. Most of the book involved dawdling by the main character in accepting her heritage. Once she finally gets there, there's hardly any time left to explain it a bit. Plus, I strongly dislike how her parents ignore her.

I loved this book, but it's difficult to review without giving, well, *everything* away!

Something tragic happened to 15 year old Skylar's family three years ago, and only now is she taking steps to get on with her life by attending summer school. Her grandmother and sister support her, but her parents, especially her mother, have great reservations since she'll be taking the city bus there and back. As Skylar begins enjoying her class and making friends, one of the characters begins acting show more very strangely.

The mysterious tragedy drives this story, urging the reader on (good thing it's short enough to finish in one sitting!). A careful reading yields clues to the tragedy, but isn't fully revealed till almost the end of the book. This was easy to read, but very sad, with a hopeful, unfinished ending. show less

I'm a sucker for books about the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, so this one on display at my library caught my eye. It was almost new to read the story of one of the poor people (Kate) in the South of Market area, but then we also had Jolie's story. I wished there was more detail on their recovery from the earthquake, but that wasn't the goal of the book. I'll admit that I enjoyed the chapters with Kate's point of view more than Jolie's, but it was all well-written.

From the number of 4 and 5 star reviews with no comments for this book, I am going to guess that a lot of people found this book to be indescribable in the way it made them feel. This is an amazing book about love and loss and coping with the death of a parent and I recommend it to anyone of all ages. It broke my heart every single time I read it as a teen.