Hold Still ~ Nina LaCour

Title: Hold Still
Author: Nina LaCour
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Copyright: 2009
Format: Audiobook
Hold Still Book Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XYJQa4u2jQ


School Library Journal Review: 
Grade 10 Up—After losing her best friend, Ingrid, to suicide, Caitlin is completely immobilized. Unable to function, and refusing to visit a therapist, she begins the long journey to wellness alone. During this year of heart-wrenching, raw emotion, Caitlin finds Ingrid's journal, which not only reveals her descent into irreversible depression, but also serves as Caitlin's vehicle for renewed hope in the future. The book is written with honesty, revealing one's pain after the loss of a loved one. Caitlin learns, with the help of new friends and her parents, that there is life after Ingrid.—Sharon Morrison, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant, OK 

Review: 
Hold Still  is a quiet, but noteworthy book. It tells the story of Caitlin, whose best friend Ingrid commits suicide. The only thing she leaves behind for Caitlin is her last journal, with drawings and entries that speak of depression, loneliness and finally the loss of hope. 
This novel follows teen Caitlin's difficult year back at school after the loss from suicide of her best friend, Ingrid. Caitlin's interactions with peers and teachers are often painful, such as the strange withdrawal of her previously adoring photography teacher and acquaintances either insensitively asking how Ingrid killed herself to over-gushing and treating Caitlin better than they ever have before. I feel like LaCour skillfully captured pretty much every awkward reaction, to an extent, that could happen in the wake of such a tragedy. 


Hold Still mostly takes place in the fictional inland East Bay suburb of Los Cerros, but the most important aspect of the setting is not geography, but the shaky terrain of adolescence. There may be a fortunate few readers who can't identify with feeling insecure around the popular kids, wondering how to approach a new potential friendship, and what to do about a crush, but for the rest of us, these matters will be all too familiar. I'm thankful that I never had a friend commit suicide, but the swirling mix of despair, rage, guilt, loss, antisociability felt painfully realistic. 


This is, of course, a novel of slow and hard-earned recovery, and it really feels genuine. Caitlin's recent solitude makes her understand what makes the new outsider girl at school tick (Dylan, an artsy lesbian from the city) and they slowly and awkwardly become friends. Caitlin discovers one of Ingrid's journals and finds that her friend was experiencing a lot of pain she never knew about, and may not have been able to help with. However, she also experiences Ingrid's catharsis through art, and her longing for a genuine relationship. Despite the fact that Ingrid is dead, I really felt her presence in this book. She is in the photos Caitlin takes, in her memory and in her journal entries. She is portrayed in so many facets: The talented artist, the friend and daughter, the reckless teen. Some of these thoughts spur Ingrid on toward her own propensity for building things and realizing her crush on a classmate. A nice pacing of ups and downs that seems to do a realistic job of capturing the sorrow and unexpected joy in the year after a major loss.

What this story shows off more than anything is Nina's keen ear for powerful truths, and just as good acting draws attention not to itself but to the story being told, Nina's gracefully unadorned style provides a clear window into the human heart--and in that way, it's the best style of all.  Hold Still was executed brilliantly. There was enough hope in the novel to keep me reading but still enough pain to break my heart. This was such a realistic depiction of someone going through an unexpected loss. I grieved with Caitlin and I went with her in her journey of figuring out how to live without someone you love. It was so fresh and new to see Caitlin find solace in her creativeness. She was creating new things out of the wreck around her. The writing was beautiful and the flow of the plot was smooth (as much as it can be concerning suicide). 

Waiting for Normal ~ Leslie Connor

Title: Waiting for Normal

Author: Leslie Connor

Publisher: Katherine Tegan Books, 290 pages (hardcover) 

Copyright: 2008

Booklist Review:

We’ve seen this situation before: a parent neglects a child, while the child seeks a wider community to find support. Here that child is 12-year-old Addie, who lives with Mommers in a trailer on a busy street in Schenectady after her adored stepfather and half sisters move upstate. Mommers has lost custody of the “littles” because of neglect, and though she and Addie can laugh together, once Mommers hooks up with Pete, she is not much for good times—though she brings the bad times home. Addie finds solace in occasional visits to her sisters and in her neighbors, especially Soula, ill from her chemotherapy treatments. Connor takes a familiar plot and elevates it with smartly written characters and unexpected moments. Addie starts out being a kid who thinks she has to go along to get along, but as Mommers’ actions become more egregious, her spine stiffens. And though Addie loves her time upstate, she is willing to forgo it when the normality she has there is more painful than positive. This is a meaningful story that will touch many. Grades 5-7. --Ilene Cooper

 

Review:

A sweet story of enduring hardships and a crazy family with endless optimism. Little Addie has apparently hit bottom. They now live in a junky trailer underneath a train overpass in Schnectady. Mommers surfs the Web all day, relies on Addie for cooking and cleaning, and takes off whenever she feels like it. Addie misses her responsible, loving ex-stepfather and his two daughters. Will Addie be able to find "normal" again?

This book has a lot going for it: Addie is the quintessential cock-eyed optimist, but she never comes off as cloying or goody-goody. She's just sweet and loveable; the quietish kid you liked sitting next to in the lunchroom. Addie is strong and resilient – and far more adult sometimes than her mom (who may be a manic-depressive, or schizophrenic, or just plain inconsiderate and manipulative). She almost always manages to make the best out of the bad situations she finds herself in, and she’s mostly easy-going and happy. Her mom, on the other hand, is a mess, and creates drama for herself wherever she goes. She neglects Addie, and neglected her other two girls when she had custody, and by the end of this book she’s pregnant again as she attempts to reel in yet another man.

Addie leaks out the true horribleness of things in small drips, slowly revealing the selfishness of her mother, the cancer of an adult friend, the bitterness of letting down her stage orchestra friends, and her painful separation from her sisters.

The amazing thing about this book is it lets you glimpse inside a life that most people would find unbelievably difficult, and yet Addie's voice shows you how tiresome and real life can be, even while she makes the best of raising herself, turning small things into triumphs and ordinary people into heroes.