Peas and Carrots

November 23, 2015
The daughter of an abusive father and drug-addicted mother, 15-year-old Dess has led a tumultuous life, hopping from one social-service placement to another. Now, with her father in prison and her mother planning to testify against him, Dess has a chance to reunite with her four-year-old brother, Austin, if she can bear living with his rich foster parents. Even harder to tolerate is the Carters’ nerdy teenage daughter, Hope, who is the complete opposite of aggressive, hard-edged Dess. Alternating between the girls’ perspectives, Davis (Happy Families) insightfully traces the difficult adjustments each teen faces, coexisting in a home where everyone is supposed to “choose kindness” in all things. Davis gracefully and honestly addresses Dess’s discomfort in living with parents of another race (she is white, while the Carters are black), and the misunderstandings borne out of prejudice. Yet the central focus remains on Dess and Hope’s internal conflicts, which run deeper than their current living arrangements, particularly as Dess faces a hard choice: protecting a member of her birth family or remaining with a family she has almost begun to trust. Ages 12–up. Agent: Steven Chudney, Chudney Agency.

November 15, 2015
Unwillingly brought together, two girls rely on snap judgements to guide their encounters with each other, and as a result, tempers flare. Fifteen-year-old Dess Matthews, a white girl, has bounced from the streets to juvenile homes to foster care. Her dad is an abusive drug dealer. Her mom is a meth addict. Her grandma doesn't want her. And her little brother, Austin, is in foster care. Hope Carter, also 15, a black girl, has lived a very different life--a comfortable one...except for the constant barrage of foster children streaming through her parents' house, the latest being Austin. Dess is annoyed when she arrives at the Carters' perfect home. Their daughter, whom she's cruelly nicknamed "Hopeless," is naive, and Austin thinks of the Carters as his real family. One glance at Dess gives Hope all the information she needs to know about her new fashionista foster sister; Dess is trouble, especially with her "dragon-lady nails" and "unfriendly eyes." The dialogue is sometimes clunky and awkward, but Davis' dual narrative effectively portrays two very different but very genuine teenage characters--two girls learning to accept each other's vastly different lifestyles as they try to coexist. Their relationship is fraught with tension, and their familial situations aren't perfect, fostering an emotionally honest plot and candid conversations about race and class. A worthy read for teens looking to expand their worldviews. (Fiction. 12-16)

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December 1, 2015

Gr 8 Up-Dess and Hope are both 15, and their lives have intersected: Dess has moved from a group home to a foster placement, and Hope is her new foster sister. Resentment and distrust immediately flare on both sides, but Davis avoids the trappings of an issue novel about foster care by giving her characters deep nuance and complexity-enhanced by the girls' narrating alternating chapters. Dess is cynical about whether a family can be as loving as Hope's seems; her own grandmother refused to care for her and her brother upon their mother's incarceration, in part, Dess believes, because her brother is biracial. This experience also makes Dess, who is white, particularly sensitive to being mistaken as racist by Hope and her family, who are black. On Hope's side, isolation and frustration are the major motivators, as Hope struggles to adjust at school after her best friend moves overseas. Yet the two begin to stand up for and help each other-resentfully at first, but with genuine appreciation by the end. While this transition from name-calling enemies to sisterly bond feels quick given the time line of the novel, the overall theme remains strong: family are the people you can trust to care for you, regardless of how you come together. VERDICT Nuance and honesty make this a solid addition to young adult collections.-Amy Koester, Learning Experiences Department, Skokie PL

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2016
Grades 9-12 Odessa, called Dess, likes to be left alone. But that's not happening: she has been placed with a foster family while her mother is in jail, waiting to testify against Dess' felon father. Dess is reunited with her half brother, Baby, and introduced to new foster sister, Hope, in a mainstream, middle-class home, populated by a close-knit, squeaky-clean African American familya huge contrast to Dess' meth-addled, biker-gang parents. Davis writes in alternating perspectives, drawing from her own experience as a foster sister, as she shows each young woman negotiating the new situation. Although Dess faces complex issues including estrangement from her grandmother, fear of her incarcerated father, and conflict over her role in Baby's life, she faces the world with a steely practicality that pampered Hope has never had to adopt. Hope is an equally vivid character who, despite typical teen angst, is supported by her family's kindness, and tries her best to see the world through Dess' eyes. A raw and emotionally moving story of family, both lost and found.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2016
Fifteen-year-old Dess isn't excited about living with the Carters after her mother is arrested, but there is a bright spot. Her half-brother Austin has been their foster child since he was a baby, and Dess remembers him as the one bit of joy she had in an abusive home. But Austin calls the strange woman Mama, and things go from bad to worse when Dess meets Hope, the Carters' teenage daughter. The girls immediately dislike each other and compete in every arena, from school to choir to home, with each girl vying for favorite-sister status. Dess cannot stand the Carters' positivity, their other foster baby Jamaira's debilitating disability, or Hope's naivete. For her part, Hope finds Dess self-centered, and she's jealous when her dad sticks up for Dess. What could be a run-of-the-mill odd-couple/mean-girl story is nuanced, layered, and rarely overwrought in Davis's capable hands. In alternating chapters (first-person for Dess and third-person for Hope), the ugliest and most vulnerable parts of each character are revealed; neither is a Mary Sue or a villain. Davis does not mince words when voicing Dess's ingrained prejudices when she compares the affluence of the African American Carter family to her own experiences of poverty and homelessness as a white person, and both Dess and Hope are capable of slinging insults that would make Regina George proud. The book could easily be described as a touching story about different ways to make a family, but it's also a complex look at race, class, bodies, and the judgments people make. sarah hannah gomez

(Copyright 2016 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)