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FAR FROM THE TREE

Page history last edited by RichiesPicks 6 years, 4 months ago

5 November 2017 FAR FROM THE TREE by Robin Benway, Harper Teen, October 2017, 384p., ISBN: 978-0-06-233062-8

 

“When you’re standing at the crossroads

And don’t know which path to choose

Let me come along

‘Cuz even if you’re wrong

I’ll stand by you”

--The Pretenders (1994)

 

“‘What about Maya and Grace?’ Ana asked him, ‘Are you going to tell them about what happened?’

‘Nope,’ he replied, popping the p sound at the end and looking out the window. An entire van full of kids drove past them, some surfboards sticking out of the back. Joaquin was pretty sure some of them went to his school. He both envied them and never actually wanted to be them.

‘You don’t think they would understand?’ Ana asked now, pulling Joaquin’s attention back to the restaurant, to the waitress setting their food down on the table.

‘Of course they’re not gonna understand!’ Joaquin said as soon as she was gone. ‘They live with these perfect families, they have these perfect lives. What am I going to say, that their older brother who looks nothing like them is crazy?’

Ana raised an eyebrow. She hated that word.

‘Sorry,’ Joaquin said.”

 

Joaquin, 17, Grace, 16, and Maya, 15, are maternal siblings. They  are now meeting one another for the first time because Grace and Maya were both adopted at birth, and Joaquin was sent into the foster care system as a toddler. He has bounced around in the system ever since.

 

Contrary to what Joaquin thinks, and what he tells his therapist Ana, all three siblings are living rather precarious lives, stuck in his or her own pain. Will their reunion turn out to be a blessing? Only if they can each open up to one another and begin sharing the important things going on in their lives.

 

Grace is grieving the baby that she delivered and gave away just a month ago. Maya’s adoptive mother has been drinking like a fish and her father is about to announce that he’s moving out. Joaquin, with his loving foster parents, may seem to be in the best place of the three at the moment. But he is terribly damaged from the abuse and neglect throughout years of shuffling foster care situations and institutionalization that preceded his life with Mark and Linda.

 

“Maya wondered whether, if she shook Joaquin all the thoughts he’d been holding in would fall out of him like candy out of a piñata. It was a tempting image.”

 

FAR FROM THE TREE is a moving and addictive read, one of those books from which you take hundred-page gulps and still cannot wait to see what happens next with Joaquin, Grace, and Maya. Behind the action is the mystery of their unknown biological mother who had three kids in three years and gave them all away.

 

The character development of each of the three teens is exceptional. Each possesses admirable traits and each has some history that will break your heart. Fortunately, each will also be able to move forward and heal thanks to the love and support of their newfound siblings.

 

This is of the best YA’s I’ve read in years.  I’m expecting FAR FROM THE TREE to be one of those rare books that teens recommend to and share with their friends, classmates, and relatives.

 

Richie Partington, MLIS

Richie's Pickshttp://richiespicks.pbworks.com

https://www.facebook.com/richiespicks/

richiepartington@gmail.com  

 

 

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