Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Fifteen-year-old Pearl; her erstwhile professor father; their dog, Marianne Moore; and two men, Dox and his adult son, Fritter, are squatters, living a hand-to-mouth existence in a rundown riverfront boathouse near an affluent neighborhood in the American South. They scavenge to meet their simple needs, and Dox, who plays the guitar, busks in a nearby town. Peace and quiet describe their quotidian lives until Pearl meets Mason, whom she calls Main Boy, the wealthy son of the man who owns the property. Main Boy and his clumsy posse of teenage boys are wannabe filmmakers, shooting videos of pranks to put up on the Internet. Pearl and Mason form an awkward friendship that soon turns physical and leads to a very dark place. In the meantime, Pearl's father has a seizure and is taken to a hospital downriver. To reach him, Pearl and Fritter sail down the river on a raft à la Huckleberry Finn. Let's No One Get Hurt is the evocative story of a free-spirited girl trying to find herself amid memories of her long-gone mother. The story is beautifully and even poetically told in Pearl's first-person voice. (It's so hot. The air is a dress made of pink insulation.) The fully developed characters are as memorable as the lovely, sometimes melancholy story they people. A classic coming-of-age novel that lingers with the reader long after the last page.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Pineda (Apology) crafts an evocative novel about the cruelty of children and the costs of poverty in the contemporary South. Fifteen-year-old Pearl lives a marginal life in a dilapidated boathouse with her father and two other adult men. Pearl, socially isolated among the scavenging adults and feeling stunted, meets Mason Boyd, son of the wealthy family who recently bought up the land she is squatting on. He and his friends cruise around the countryside on their golf carts and scheme ways to become internet famous through juvenile prank videos. As Pearl and spoiled, contemptuous Mason embark on a secret sexual relationship, she yearns for a more normal life and swallows the scorn of her peers. Pineda fleshes out the main plot with flashbacks that explain the absence of Pearl's mother, her father's loss of his university job, and the earlier joys of Pearl's life. Poverty's demands and racial violence hover around the novel's events. In the horrifying climax, the disadvantaged are abused and treated as disposable by the privileged. This stark tale of slow-burning anguish will draw in readers with its lyrical prose and haunting images. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
A disgraced white professor and his 15-year-old daughter, Pearl, live off the grid in an abandoned boathouse in the deep South with an African American father/son duo. The chronically dirty and disheveled Pearl encounters the leader of a bunch of rich kids who ride around in tricked-out golf carts. Soon Mason Boyd, or "Main Boy," and Pearl are involved in a very secret and sexual relationship. There are lots of incidents, some more interesting than others-theft of an expensive fly rod, a raft trip, disruption of a Civil War reenactment, a heart attack-but there's not a whole lot of plot. The sad centerpiece is when the rich kids, sans Martin, trick Pearl into getting dressed up for a "dance," which is actually a planned torture session. VERDICT This new work from the author of Apology, a Milkweed National Fiction Prize, is not really a coming-of-age story; Pearl at the end is pretty much like Pearl at the beginning. The work stands up as a local-color Southern gothic, but the whole is exceeded by the sum of the parts. [See Prepub Alert, 10/5/17.]-Robert E. Brown, Oswego, NY © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A fascinating story of a teenage girl squatting with her father and dealing with the aftershocks of familial trauma in the rural South.Some stories seem to be on a path to an unpleasant resolution from the beginning. Such is the case with Pineda's (Apology, 2017, etc.) new novel: narrator Pearl is a teenager living in an abandoned boathouse with her father, a former college professor, and two friends of the family after her father lost his job and their family crumbled. Some legacies of Pearl's old life remain, including an elderly dog named after the acclaimed poet Marianne Moore. The dog's failing health, and the need to euthanize her, is the note on which the book opens, and it provides a running theme across its pages, a reminder of the fragility and impermanence of life. Early on in the novel, Pearl meets a young man she dubs "Main Boy," a boorish child of privilege who traverses the landscape with a gang of friendsa group that Pearl refers to as "the flies." Main Boy turns out to be the son of the man who owns the land on which Pearl and her makeshift family are squatting; that his behavior toward her is predatory is further evidence that things will not end well. Pearl periodically flashes back to a time when her mother was still present, and the family dynamics there have their own unnerving moments. Pineda has a great ear for dialogue and the ability to sustain an ominous mood; it all contributes to a solid sense of place and the impermanence thereof.Though its narrative focus can at times feel almost claustrophobic, this novel's terrific sense of place, haunting character dynamics, and assured narrative voice make it memorable. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
