Laurel everywhere

Erin Moynihan, 1996-

Book - 2020

After the death of her mother and siblings, fifteen-year-old Laurel Summers' father struggles with grief and depression, leaving her it to her friends to help her cope with her pain and loss.

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Subjects
Published
Portland, Oregon : Ooligan Press, Portland State University [2020]
Language
English
Main Author
Erin Moynihan, 1996- (author)
Physical Description
224 pages ; 22 cm
Audience
Ages 12-18.
Grades 10-12.
ISBN
9781947845190
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Fifteen-year-old Laurel's summer explodes when her mother, older brother Rowan, and younger sister Tansy are killed in a car accident. She struggles with grief, survivor's guilt, and her father's subsequent breakdown. At first, Laurel tries to handle the situation on her own and acts impulsively. She gets a homemade tattoo, which promptly gets infected. She goes out to the prison to confront the driver who hit her mother's car. She pursues total strangers in her search for a tansy flower and a rowan leaf. Her acting out is part of a reaction to going from the middle child who tended to fly under the radar to an only child with everyone's attention laser-focused on her. When she finally gets therapy, she learns how to set boundaries, especially with her father, and develop strategies. Laurel's first-person, present-tense narrative powerfully brings the reader along on her journey, and the characters--including ghost versions of her mother and siblings, who may or may not be real--are well defined. There is no tidy resolution, but, more realistically, there is hope.

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

Gr 9 Up--Fifteen-year-old Laurel, reeling from the recent deaths of her mother and two siblings in a car accident, must now also cope with her father's subsequent suicide attempts. When he moves temporarily out of state to a facility that helps the recently bereaved, Laurel's grandparents move in with her. She also has the support of her two best friends, Lyssa and Hanna, and a therapist, who help Laurel evolve and heal during this time. In this character-driven debut novel, Moynihan paints a vivid, realistic picture of a teen dealing with the many stages of grief and aptly conveys her interactions with those who are trying to help her. Most poignant among these are the difficult conversations Laurel has with her father about his long-term depression and her feeling that he tried to abandon her. Also notable are Laurel's tentative interactions with Hanna, with whom she is in love but is not sure if her feelings are reciprocated. There are many substantial themes at play in this novel--loss, mental health, sexual orientation--that could seem overwhelming to readers, but Moynihan skillfully weaves these matters together to make Laurel a robust, three-dimensional narrator. A list of resources at the end of the novel provides contact information for various abuse and suicide prevention helplines. Laurel has red-brown hair, and other characters' appearances and backgrounds aren't specified. VERDICT A recommended purchase, especially for fans of Deb Caletti's A Heart in the Body in the World.--Melissa Kazan, Horace Mann School, NY

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

In the aftermath of the car crash that killed three members of 15-year-old Laurel's family, she and her father are left bereft and struggling, each in their own way. Two weeks after the deaths of her mother; older brother, Rowan; and younger sister, Tansy, Laurel is found on a trail in the mountains east of Seattle by her best friend, Hanna. All Laurel recalls is her father's continuing to hike while she stopped to rest. Now he is nowhere to be found, leaving her in anguish. Fortunately, she has Hanna and Lyssa, their mutual friend, to support her, first as she waits for him to be found and then as he seeks inpatient treatment for his depression. Laurel's grief journey is presented in an insightful manner, detailing impulsive moves (like an illegal stick-and-poke tattoo), imagined visits from ghosts of her dead family, and hatred for the driver who caused the accident. Laurel is a strong first-person narrator, with a wry, believable voice that never seems pretentious or precious. Two well-handled subplots are Laurel and Hanna's slowly growing romantic attraction and Lyssa's positive experience with her foster family. Laurel and her siblings were each named for plants; the symbolism of laurel bushes, tansy flowers, and rowan trees is cleverly woven through the narrative. Most characters are White; Hanna is cued as biracial, with a White mother and dark-skinned father. A gem. (resources, discussion guide) (Fiction. 13-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.