How to make friends with the dark

Kathleen Glasgow, 1969-

Book - 2019

Tiger, sixteen, has been pushing away from her overprotective mother, but when her mother dies suddenly Tiger must learn to live when it feels she is surrounded by darkness.

Saved in:

Young Adult Area Show me where

YOUNG ADULT FICTION/Glasgow Kathleen
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
Young Adult Area YOUNG ADULT FICTION/Glasgow Kathleen Checked In
Published
New York : Delacorte Press [2019]
Language
English
Main Author
Kathleen Glasgow, 1969- (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
pages cm
ISBN
9781101934753
9781101934777
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

In another standout realistic fiction novel that tackles trauma and grief, Glasgow (Girl in Pieces, 2016) introduces 16-year-old Tiger (née Grace) Tolliver, whose simple, sheltered life in Mesa Luna, Arizona, is turned upside down when her single mother passes away suddenly from an aneurysm. In the midst of her guilt over her vitriolic last words to her mother, Tiger is placed into foster care and is confronted with the harsh realities many children go through in the system. Tiger's frank voice leads readers through her complicated grieving process, which includes never taking off the second-hand dress for the school dance her mother picked out for her right before she passed. While the ending meanders, Glasgow skillfully depicts different ways grief can manifest in a realistic, empathetic manner. The voice of Tiger's girl-bug becomes a particularly effective narrative device after Tiger notes, You'll look alive on the outside but be dead on the inside, flicking your wings and watching everyone through the jar. Tiger's distinctive, haunting voice will be hard to forget.--Caitlin Kling Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 9 Up--Sixteen-year-old Tiger likes to hang out with her best friend Cake and be lovingly smothered by her overprotective, secretive single mother. But when her mother dies suddenly from a brain aneurysm, Tiger's life is upended in a single moment. She descends into unrelenting grief as she enters the foster care system. Secrets emerge slowly, including an unknown older half-sister with issues of her own. Jorjeana Marie does a standout job narrating, skillfully drawing listeners into the story and immersing them in the emotional intensity of Tiger's grief and the bleakness of the foster care system. The isolation Tiger feels despite others' attempts to help her is heartbreakingly portrayed, as well as the glimmers of hope that weave their way into the story. The audio concludes with a thoughtful note, read by the author, about the "Grand Canyon--sized void" people feel when they lose a loved one. VERDICT This is not a light listen, but it's perfect for teens who love darkly tragic and poignant audiobooks.--Julie Paladino, formerly with East Chapel Hill High School, Chapel Hill, NC

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review

Tiger is intensely close with her single mom, even if she bristles at times against her mom's overprotective tendencies. When her mother dies suddenly, Tiger is left absolutely bereft, struggling to find her way in the absence of her most foundational relationship. At times, the first-person narrative is almost claustrophobic in its intimacy, making for a painful but powerful evocation of grief and loss. (c) Copyright 2021. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Sixteen-year-old Tiger Tolliver's struggles are relatively minorshe's stuck in secondhand threads and lusts after her biology partneruntil her overprotective but loving mother unexpectedly dies.For more than 200 pages, readers endure with Tiger the two weeks that follow her mother's death. A minor with no known living relatives, Tiger becomes a ward of the state of Arizona, sharing foster homes with kids who have been abused and abandoned. She finds herself responsible for the logistics of death, such as the funeral planning and ordering death certificates. Tiger obsesses over the last words she screamed to her mom, "Why can't you ever just fucking leave me alone?" and refuses to take off the outmoded dress that was the last thing her mother ever bought her. The onslaught of grief and regret is so intimate that at times the novel feels claustrophobic, as if there is no escape. Which, of course, for Tiger, there isn't. There's only surrender to her new normal. A few glimmers of hope appear in the form of friendships and kindnesses, but this narrative is chiefly a first-person experience of the void left behind when the most important person in a young woman's life is suddenly gone. It's visceral and traumatic, pulsing with ache. Tiger is white, and many secondary characters are black and Latinx.A gritty, raw account of surviving tragedy one minute at a time. (Fiction. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

I find the bills by accident, stuffed underneath a pile of underwear in the dresser my mother and I share. Instead of clean socks, my hands come away with a thick stack of envelopes marked Urgent, Last Notice, Contact Immediately.   My heart thuds. We don't have a lot, we never have, but we've made do with what my mom makes as the county Bookmobile lady and from helping out at Bonita's daycare. Come summer, we've got the Jellymobile, but that's another story.   You don't hide things in a drawer unless you're worried.   Mom's been on the couch since yesterday morning, cocooned in a black-and-red wool blanket, sleeping off a headache.   "Mom," I say, loudly. "Mommy."   No answer. I check the crooked clock on the wall. Forty minutes until zero period.   We're what my mom likes to call "a well-oiled, good-looking, and good-smelling machine." But I need the other half of my machine to beep and whir at me, and to do all that other stuff moms are supposed to do. If I don't have her, I don't have anything. It's not like with my friend Cake, who has two parents and an uncle living with her. If my mom is sick, or down, I'm shit out of luck for help and companionship.   And rides to school.   "Mom!" I scream as loud as I can, practically ripping my throat in the process. I shove the bills back beneath the stack of underwear and head to the front room.   The scream worked. She's sitting up, the wool blanket crumpled on the floor.   "Good morning to you, too," she mumbles thickly.   Her short hair is matted on one side and spiky on the other. She looks around, like she recognizes nothing, like she's an alien suddenly dropped into our strange, earthly atmosphere.   She blinks once, twice, three times, then says, "Tiger, baby, get me some coffee, will you?"   "There's no coffee." I use my best accusatory voice. I have to be a little mean. I mean, come on. It looks like we're in dire straits here, plus, a couple other things, like Kai, are currently burning a hole in my brain. I need Mom-things to be happening.   "There's nothing," I say. "Well, peanut butter. You can have a big fat hot cup of steaming peanut butter."   My mom smiles, which kills me, because I can't resist it, and everything I thought I might say about the stack of unpaid bills kind of flies out the window. Things will be fixed now. Things will be okay, like always.   We can beep and whir again.   Mom gets up and walks to the red coffeemaker. Coffee is my mother's drug. That and cigarettes, no matter how much Bonita and Cake and I tell her they're disgusting and deadly. When I was little, I used to wake up at the crack of dawn, ready to play with her, just her, before she'd drag me to the daycare, and I always had to wait until she had her first cup of coffee and her first cigarette. It was agony waiting for that stupid machine to glug out a cup while my hands itched with Legos or pick-up sticks.   She heaves a great sigh. "Shit," she says. "Baby! I better get my ass in gear, huh?" She's standing at the sink, trying to turn on the faucet, but nothing is coming out. "The water's still crappy? I was hoping that was just a bad dream." She nods to the faucet.   "Pacheco isn't returning my calls," I say. Mr. Pacheco is our landlord and not a very nice one.   She murmurs, "I guess I'll have to deal with that today, too."   I'm silent. Is she talking about the bills? Maybe I should--   Mom holds out her arms. "Come here, baby. Here. Come to me."   I run so fast I almost slip on the threadbare wool rug on the floor and I go flying against her, my face landing just under her collarbone. Her lips graze the top of my head.   Mom trembles. Her shirt's damp, like she's been sweating. She must need a cigarette. "I'm sorry," she whispers into my hair. "I don't know what happened. What a headache. Bonita leaving, the daycare closing. I just . . . it was a lot all at once, and I guess I stressed. Did you even have any dinner last night?"   I had a pack of lime Jell-O, and my stomach is screaming for food, but I don't tell her this. I just keep nuzzling her.   My mother pulls away and laughs. "Grace," she says. Hearing my real name makes me cringe. "Gracie, that pajama top doesn't quite fit you anymore, baby doll."   I pull defensively at the hem of the T-shirt and cross my arms over my chest.   My mom sighs. I know what's coming, so I prepare my I'm bored face.   "Tiger," she says firmly. "You're a beautiful girl. I was just teasing, which I shouldn't have done. You should never hide you. You're growing into something wondrous. Don't be ashamed."   Wondrous. She and Bonita are crazy for the affirmation talk. Cake likes to say their mission in life is to Build a Better Girl Than They Were. "You know," she said once, "their moms probably put them on diets of cottage cheese before prom and told them to keep their legs closed around boys."   I roll my eyes and groan. "You have to tell me those things," I answer. "You're my mom. It's in your job description."   Her face softens and I feel guilty. Once I overheard her say to Bonita, "I try to tell Tiger all the things I never got to hear, you know?"   And I always want to know, what didn't she get to hear? Because she's tight-lipped about her early, non-Mom, kidlike days. Her parents died when she was in college, and she doesn't like to talk about them.   My mother rummages around in the cabinets and somehow, somewhere, finds a lone can of Coke, even though I scoured the cabinets last night for spare eats. She takes a long, grateful sip and then wipes her mouth. She fishes in her purse for a cigarette.   "Go get dressed, Tiger. I'll drop you at school and then I've got a lot of things to do. Today is going to be one hell of a day, I promise. Food, Pacheco, the works. I'll make up for being out of it, okay?"   "Okay."   Mom heads out in the backyard to smoke and I hit my bedroom, where I frantically try to find something suitable in my closet of mostly unsuitable clothing. My mother thinks finding clothes in boxes on the side of the road is creative and fun and interesting and environmentally conscious ("One person's trash is another person's treasure!") and not actually a by-product of our thin finances, but sometimes I wish I went to school dressed like any other girl, in leggings and a tee, maybe, with cute strappy sandals to highlight pink-polished toenails. Instead, I mostly look like a creature time forgot, dressed in old clothes that look like, well, old clothes.   I drag on a skirt and a faded T-shirt and jam a ball cap on my head, because the water in the shower is starting to look suspicious, too, so a shower is out of the question. I brush my teeth like a demon in the bathroom and splash water on my face.   Then, like I always do, I allow myself a minimum of three seconds to wonder: Who the hell is that? Where did she come from?   Because the dark and straight hair is nothing like my mother's short, light mop. My freckles look like scattered dirt next to her creamy, blemish-free face.   So much of me is from The Person Who Shall Not Be Named. So much of me is unknown.   But here I am, and for now I need to get my mother in gear, get to school, make it through zero period and the little five-day-a-week shit-show I like to call "The Horror of Lupe Hidalgo," which, if I survive, leads to Bio, and to Kai Henderson, the very thought of whom makes my heart start to pound like a stupid, lovesick drum, and who is one of the things I need to talk to my mother about. Excerpted from How to Make Friends with the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.