Again again

E. Lockhart

Book - 2020

Rising high school senior Adelaide Buchwald grapples with a family catastrophe and romantic upheaval while confronting secrets she keeps, her ideas about love, and the weird grandiosity of the human mind.

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YOUNG ADULT FICTION/Lockhart, E.
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Subjects
Genres
Domestic fiction
Published
New York : Delacorte Press [2020]
Language
English
Main Author
E. Lockhart (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
288 pages ; 22 cm
Audience
Ages 12 up.
ISBN
9780385744799
9780375991851
  • Part I.
  • A Love Story
  • The Weird Grandiosity of the Human Mind
  • A Philosophical Party
  • Adelaide's Brother
  • The Precarious Nature of New Love
  • Mikey Double L, A Love Story in Only One Universe
  • A Terrible Spiral
  • The Egg Yolk of Misery
  • Bacon Is Definitely Meaningful
  • The Attractions of Tragedy
  • I'm Not Trying to Make You into Something You're Not
  • Part II.
  • It Begins with Dogs
  • The Inside of a Mind, Made with Mirrors
  • Why Stories Matter
  • Identity Is Rarely Fixed
  • What the Light Does to the Canvas
  • Soul Mates as a General Concept
  • Shall We Pretend I Was Never?
  • How to Love Someone
  • Am I the Person?
  • Part III.
  • Mikey Double L in Multiple Universes
  • Oscar, Terrance, Perla, and the M&M's
  • Adelaide's Brother, A Story in Twelve Steps
  • Fool for Love in Several Possible Worlds
  • Part IV.
  • A Mauling, in a World Not Yet Encountered
  • The Philosophical Party, Revisited
  • A Rogue Game of Cards
  • A Miniaturist
  • You Could Let That Imaginary Version Go
  • A Battle of Surpassing Ridiculousness
  • The Wave of Love
  • Someday, or in Another Universe
  • Things She Could Not Express with Words
Review by Booklist Review

ldquo;This story takes place in a number of worlds. But mostly in two." Lockhart's moving, high-concept novel follows Adelaide Buchwald through numerous different variations of the summer after her junior year as she misses her ex-boyfriend, falls for someone new, and processes the trauma of her brother's drug addiction. Starting with Adelaide's meet-cute with Jack at the dog park, the story branches into multiple possible worlds. In some, their relationship ends there after a disastrous conversation. In others, they start seeing each other around campus and grow closer, with each new encounter spawning new variations. In all of these different worlds, Adelaide starts talking again to her brother Toby, now out of rehab, and struggles to forgive him despite her grief and anger. If this sounds confusing, it isn't; it's surprisingly easy to follow the main story, the variation to which Lockhart devotes the most time. (The wonderfully illuminating Part IV gets the second-most time.) Font changes and spatial cues delineate the other worlds as variations on a theme, with Adelaide's inner life as the fulcrum around which the story spins. The variations all work together to tell the story of a messy, normal life where connecting authentically with others is perilously hit-or-miss but worth the heartache for what you learn about yourself.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Lockhart nabbed a Printz Honor for The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (2008), hit best-seller lists with We Were Liars (2014), and never does the same thing twice. Readers will be all over her latest.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Lockhart returns to Alabaster Preparatory Academy--the setting for The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks--to tell the story of a different character. Adrift and languorous in the summer between her junior and senior years, Adelaide Buchwald navigates the aftermath of an unexpected breakup, at least one potential new romance, and a wrenching situation with her brother. Her daily routine revolves around her job walking dogs belonging to vacationing faculty members and working to fend off academic probation by completing a set design project. Lockhart takes her penchant for plot twists to a new level, with a narrative that explores the idea of the multiverse, those infinite worlds loosed by paths taken and not taken. Key scenes are imagined and then reimagined, laying out an iterative feast of ideas about art, possibility, and the creative process for readers hungry for big concepts. Others will simply luxuriate in the storytelling: Adelaide's ups and downs, the sweetly individual personalities of the dogs she walks, and the dreamy atmosphere of the nearly deserted summertime campus. Ages 12--up. Agent: Elizabeth Kaplan, Elizabeth Kaplan Literary. (June)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 7 Up--The infinite outcomes of the multiverse theory are explored, sometimes heartbreakingly, in Lockhart's (We Were Liars) latest YA novel. Instead of wondering about what might have happened if different choices had been made, readers explore the many paths protagonist Adelaide Buchwald's summer could have taken. Adelaide is fresh off of an unexpected breakup and is spending her time as a dog walker for some of the teachers at the high school where her dad teaches; she's also attempting to complete a project for a theater design class or run the risk of failing and being expelled. Each version of her summer includes love, friendship, and how Adelaide and her family are dealing with the drug addiction of her younger brother Toby. This is not a simple romance of what could have been. The family dynamic and difficulties seem more important, affecting everything else in Adelaide's life. The various characters are voiced well by Tavia Gilbert, each person separate and distinct. Powerful emotions come through; the pain and anguish are palpable and displayed well through the voice acting. VERDICT For listeners in seach of a realistic tale with a dash of romance, an exploration of emotional trauma, and an unusual format. The attempt to distinguish the multiverses is made through sound cues, but aren't entirely successful for those listening without the book nearby.--Courtney Pentland, Omaha, NE

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

In this novel set in the same world as The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (rev. 5/08), Lockhart explores the intersection between love and the multiverse. The summer between her junior and senior years of Alabaster Preparatory Academy boarding school, "middle-class white Jewish 'faculty brat' with a public school background" Adelaide Buchwald "would fall in and out of love more than once, in different ways in different possible worlds." In most universes, she is devastated by a break-up with Mikey Double L, her first love. In some, she is distracted from her broken heart by Jack Cavallero, a mysterious poet with a tragic past. In one, she falls for Oscar, a pianist with a great sense of humor but terrible timing. In every universe, Adelaide is big sister to Toby, her beloved brother and a relapsed addict. If she can heal that relationship, the pieces of her complicated love life just might fall into place. Readers will be able to keep the universes straight through the use of font changes and clued-in chapter headings. An appealing cast of secondary characters-which include an acerbic art teacher, a romance-challenged roommate, and, best of all, a motley pack of sweet dogs that Adelaide walks-serves as amusing examples of the types of relationships Adelaide should embrace or avoid. An offbeat, philosophical love story for those who enjoy pondering the mysteries of the universe or the heart. Jennifer Hubert Swan May/June 2020 p.128(c) Copyright 2020. 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

A rising senior's summer follows diverging romantic trajectories in parallel timelines. Adelaide Buchwald is spending the summer dogsitting for her teachers at Alabaster Prep, an elite New England boarding school--and processing both her recent breakup and her brother Toby's opioid addiction. Soon she runs into Jack Cavallero, a boy who wrote a poem about her two years prior--"She contains / contradictions," he wrote--and whom she's idealized ever since. The narrative then breaks into several possibilities of how their relationship might progress. Adelaide also works to complete a set design for Sam Shepard's Fool for Love to save a failing grade from the previous year and tremulously starts to rebuild her bond with her brother despite her feelings of betrayal after the pain his addiction has caused the family. In addition to the fractured timelines, Adelaide's narrative voice occasionally fractures with added line breaks when her emotions are most heightened. Adelaide is white, Jewish, and on reduced tuition at the largely wealthy and WASP-y Alabaster; Jack is olive-skinned, and several secondary characters are racially diverse. What begins as a typical YA romance becomes a thoughtful exploration of the expectations Adelaide places on herself and others; in each timeline, she must confront her own fears and shortcomings. Toby's addiction is sensitively portrayed; the sibling relationship emerges as the true heart of this story in any timeline. A thoughtfully subversive exploration of the diverging pathways of the human heart. (Fiction. 14-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

1 A Love Story This story takes place in a number of worlds. But mostly in two. It was the third day of Adelaide Buchwald's summer job, the summer after her junior year at boarding school. That summer she would fall in and out of love more than once, in different ways in different possible worlds. In every world, she was consumed with the intense contradictions of her heart. Adelaide wanted to be rescued and she wanted independence. She was inclined to laziness, curiosity, and magical thinking. She was all charm and yet deeply miserable. She was a liar and she hated liars. She loved both truly and wrongheadedly. She appreciated beauty. Her job was to walk five dogs, morning and night. They belonged to teachers who were on summer vacation. EllaBella, Lord Voldemort, Rabbit, Pretzel, and the Great God Pan. Those were the dogs. The morning she met Jack, Adelaide took them all to the dog run on the Alabaster Preparatory Academy campus. The run was a sandy space, fenced in and surrounded by trees. Looking through the leaves, she could see the spire of the Alabaster clock tower. She unleashed the dogs and sat on a bench while they frolicked. She listened to podcasts about stupid celebrities she didn't even care about, trying to stop thinking about Mikey Double L. Adelaide threw balls for the dogs. She threw sticks. She collected poop in small plastic bags, then threw them in the trash. EllaBella said, You're a gentle human. Can I lean on you? And Adelaide let the dog lean. She stroked EllaBella's shaggy head. She texted her mom about the breakup with Mikey. She had already told her dad the little she thought he needed to know. Adelaide and her father, Levi Buchwald, had moved to Alabaster Prep for her junior year of high school. Adelaide lived in a dormitory, and Levi in Alabaster faculty housing. His new home was a small wooden house on the edge of campus. It was furnished with flea-market buys and overloaded with books. He was an English teacher. Adelaide's mother, Rebecca, and her little brother, Toby, had spent the year together in a rental house in Baltimore. Toby was very sick. Rebecca was taking care of him. Rebecca was a knitter. She used to own a store called the Good Sheep Yarn Shop, where she taught classes. Much of her home was dedicated to wicker baskets overflowing with skeins of yarn. And plants, which she tended semi-obsessively. Rebecca was a person who focused very intently on the people, plants, and yarn in front of her. She texted Adelaide back immediately about Mikey: Oh blergh. I'm sorry. You okay? Adelaide lied. Yeah. What happened? The last thing Adelaide wanted to do was tell her mother the story of Mikey Double L. ... ... Well, I'm here if you want to talk. Hug! Rebecca often used the fat, spouting whale emoji. Adelaide had no idea what it was meant to symbolize. She wrote back. Breakup was probably for the best anyway. I was sad. But I slept it off and had eggs for breakfast, and now I'm feeling much better. You're very mature. Adelaide was not at all mature. And the breakup wasn't for the best. But she didn't want her mother to spiral into anxiety. That was something Rebecca was inclined to do, with Adelaide off at boarding school. She wanted to hear that Adelaide ate well, stayed hydrated, got regular exercise, and slept enough. When Rebecca spiraled into worry, the result was a series of phone calls filled with urgent requests for reassurance and connection that ended in Adelaide yelling at her mother, so Adelaide had devised a plan of regular texts giving evidence of those desirable behaviors. "But I slept it off and had eggs for breakfast, and now I'm feeling much better" was what Rebecca needed to hear. Not "I'm puffy and dehydrated from crying and for breakfast I ate two Hershey bars and truthfully I feel unlovable and ugly, stupid and broken. I wish I could get a giant injection that would turn off my thoughts. I would let a creepy doctor with a secret basement lab shoot a random glowing substance into my ear if I knew it would stop me from feeling the way I do. Last night, I tried binge-watching baking shows and then I tried binge-watching zombie shows and then I tried listening to happy music and putting on a ton of makeup. So much makeup. Then my eyebrows (with their makeup) looked scary and their scariness made me depressed. I was depressed by my own eyebrows. I would have tried smoking cigarettes if I'd had any, and I would have drunk Dad's booze if he had any, but no luck on mind-altering substances, so I passed out at three a.m. and when I woke up I felt even worse and my pillowcase was stained with lipstick." No. She couldn't say that to her mother. Adelaide just sent the text about the good breakfast and the night's sleep. She added a zebra emoji for good measure, thinking Rebecca would like it. Then she put her phone in her pocket. The Great God Pan lay on the ground, releasing gas. EllaBella stayed close, pressing against Adelaide's leg. I am thinking you have dog treats in your pocket, she said sweetly. Lord Voldemort and Pretzel played chase. Rabbit growled at something on the other side of the fence. And suddenly, a boy appeared. He was already in the run when Adelaide saw him, standing under a tree. He had a fluffy white dog on a leash. Adelaide recognized the dog. It was B-Cake. B-Cake belonged to Sunny Kaspian-Lee. A beat later, Adelaide recognized the boy as well, though she was sure she'd never seen him at Alabaster. He had a sweet V-shaped face and full lips. He was broad in the shoulders, with a narrow nose, smooth-shaven face, delicate ears. His light brown hair was wavy and a little wild. He was the sort of person you'd see immortalized in Roman statuary, his skin a warm Mediterranean olive, his chin and neck strong. He wore a light cotton jacket, a blue T-shirt, loose jeans, and green suede sneakers with blue stripes. The sleeves of the jacket were rolled up. His hands had the slight squashy look of leftover baby fat. She knew him. She was certain of it. He nodded at her, walked over, and draped himself onto the bench. There was something unusual going on with one of his legs. He walked with a roll of his left hip, and the fabric of his jeans flapped around that leg. She remembered his walk. The boy released the clip on the leash. B-Cake zoomed over to Rabbit and Rabbit exploded into the air with an anxious yip. The boy laughed, covering his mouth with his fist. "Poor puppy," he said. "Hey, do I remember you?" she asked. "Me? I don't know." "I'm pretty sure I do remember you," she said. "From Boston. Two years ago. We met at a rooftop party when I was in ninth grade." "A party on whose rooftop?" "I don't know. A friend of my friend. It was cold and you let me wear your scarf. Remember?" The boy shook his head. "I have a radically terrible memory. Sorry." Then he took out his phone. " 'Scuse me, I've got to make a call." "Hey, do I remember you?" Adelaide asked. "Me?" he said. "I don't know." "I'm pretty sure I do remember you," she said. "From Boston." "I've never been to Boston," he said. "Hey, do I remember you?" Adelaide asked. "Me? I don't know." "I'm pretty sure I do remember you," she said. "I'm pretty sure, in fact, that you took my number at a party two years ago and you never, ever texted me, is what I'm pretty sure of. I'm pretty sure you're the kind of terrible human being who says Give me your number when he doesn't actually want the number, and I'm pretty sure that's not the kind of human being I need to talk to ever again, especially not right now, when Mikey Double L is off to Puerto Rico full of virtue and my entire sense of myself is quite frankly on the verge of liquidation." "Okay then," he said. "I don't need to make conversation." "I'm pretty sure I do remember you," Adelaide said. "From Boston. Two years ago. We met at a rooftop party." "Really?" "You were writing in a notebook," she explained. "We started talking." "What was I writing?" Adelaide flushed. She wanted to tell the boy the answer, and also, she didn't want to tell him. "We talked about dinosaurs, I think, and which ones we'd like to turn into." "Velociraptor, obviously," said the boy. "That's what you said, but you're one hundred percent wrong," said Adelaide. "Pterodactyl." "Oh, you're right," he said. "Pterodactyl is better. Flight is always better." "I used to have a fear of plesiosaurs," she told him. "Do you know about plesiosaurs? They were like, giant naked turtles with sea-monster necks." He laughed. "At the rooftop party, you gave me your scarf," continued Adelaide. "A red and black one. You said I could use it but to give it back, because it wasn't even yours, it was your cousin's." "Was I wearing a terrible leather jacket? Like a trying-too-hard jacket?" "Yes." "Then it was me," he said. "But I can't remember." "My ride was leaving and I gave the scarf back to you, and you ripped a page from your notebook. You gave me the page and you had written me a poem: Cerulean dress and wide eyes, like a lion. A raging wave of disobedient hair. She contains contradictions." "I wrote you a poem?" "You did." Adelaide was sad he didn't remember. Maybe he gave poems to a lot of girls. Or maybe he just couldn't be expected to recall a party from two and a half years ago, when they would both have been only fourteen. "I think poems, sometimes," she told him. "Often, actually. But I rarely write them down." "Do you still have the one I wrote you?" he asked. It was in her wallet. "Maybe somewhere," she told him. Adelaide had asked people if they knew a boy of his description, a boy with a roll of his hip, a poet, a boy with soft-looking wrists and golden skin and bitten nails. She had looked for him again and again as she sat in coffeehouses, as she waited in line for a burrito. At parties or ramen places, she looked for his sweet, full mouth. She was holding on to the chance that something good might happen. To Adelaide, the boy was a promise. He promised her that happiness could still exist, could still be hers. And that promise seemed even more important once the bad stuff started happening with Toby. Then the Buchwald family left Boston. They moved to Baltimore for Toby's treatment. Adelaide had accepted that she'd never see the boy in the leather jacket, ever again. Now here he was. He picked up a tennis ball that was lying in the sand. "Birthday! Come here, boy." "She's a girl," Adelaide said. "Come here, girl." B-Cake ignored him. "She doesn't fetch," Adelaide told him. "I know that dog." The boy laughed. "Okay. I don't need to throw if she's not into it." He sat down. "Did you hurt your leg?" Adelaide asked. "No." He didn't speak for a moment. Then he said, "Actually, a plesiosaur bit me. I didn't want to tell you because you seem to have a phobia." "Ha." She chewed her lip. "Was that rude of me, asking?" "A little." He sighed. "I was born this way. It's a skeletal limb abnormality." "I'm sorry. I asked without thinking." "You're not entitled to the knowledge, is all. It's my personal info. You know?" "Okay." "Okay." "D'you want to ask me something intrusive now?" she said. "You can. I feel I owe you." "No thanks." "Ask me." "That's all right." "Go on." "Fine. Ah, besides plesiosaurs, what scares you the most? Really, truly terrifies you?" "My brother," Adelaide said, the answer coming out before she had time to craft an amusing reply. He picked up a tennis ball that was lying in the sand. "Birthday! Come here, boy." "She's a girl," Adelaide said. "Come here, girl." B-Cake ignored him. "She doesn't fetch," Adelaide told him. "I know that dog." The boy laughed. "Okay. I don't need to throw if she's not into it." He sat down next to her. "I'm just taking her this weekend while the owner's out of town. Are all of these yours?" He was talking about EllaBella, Rabbit, and the rest. "I just walk them." He reached down to pet EllaBella, who was lying at Adelaide's feet. "This dog is my favorite," he said. "She has an excellent beard." EllaBella was a bushy black mutt, nearly fifteen years old. "She's my favorite too," Adelaide whispered. "But don't tell the others." EllaBella was owned by Derrick Byrd, a single teacher of history. He'd come to Alabaster last year. He still had unpacked boxes in his house, which was two doors down from her dad's. "I never tell secrets," said the boy. She liked the way his mouth moved when he spoke. He had blue paint underneath his nails. "What did you paint?" she asked. "I have access to the art studio for the summer. I'm painting abstract shapes, I guess you'd call them. Things that look like other things but aren't those things." "Like what?" "This one I'm doing--don't laugh." "I won't." "Well, you can laugh. It's kind of a hippopotamus and it's kind of a car. And also, it's kind of a church. The meaning is what the viewer sees in it." "Hm." "I'm not getting the effect I want," he said. "A lot of them look like blobs, not church hippos or whatever. It's just the start of an idea." "What year are you?" she asked. "Rising senior." "I've never seen you. On campus." He told her he had just transferred in. "My mother died six months ago." She'd had leukemia. He and his father had just relocated from Spain. His dad used to teach at Alabaster and was now going to head the Modern Languages department. "I'm so sorry," Adelaide said. "About your mother." "Yeah, well. Thanks." Lord Voldemort came up and wagged his stubby tail. "How come you walk so many dogs?" "The teachers go away on summer travel. My father teaches English, but this summer he's working in Admissions for extra money. I got the idea to collect people's dogs and take them out, morning and evening. I feed them, too." "I'm gonna get Birthday to fetch," he said. "Watch me." He chased after B-Cake, showing her the tennis ball. "You know you want it. Look at it, so yellow. Covered with awesome dog slime. Watch it, watch it!" Excerpted from Again Again by E. Lockhart 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.