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Summary
Summary
A new hilarious, honest, and hopeful novel from the author of Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie It's not easy being Claire. (Really.) Claire's life is a joke . . . but she's not laughing. While her friends seem to be leaping forward, she's dancing in the same place. The mean girls at school are living up to their mean name, and there's a boy, Ryder, who's just as bad, if not worse. And at home, nobody's really listening to her -- if anything, they seem to be more in on the joke than she is.Then into all of this (not-very-funny-to-Claire) comedy comes something intense and tragic -- while her dad is talking to her at the kitchen table, he falls over with a medical emergency. Suddenly the joke has become very serious -- and the only way Claire, her family, and her friends are going to get through it is if they can find a way to make it funny again.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-8-Claire Goldsmith has been living a relatively cursed life, at least in her opinion. Her dance friends have all moved up a level, but she's stayed the same. Eighth grade is nightmarish thanks to mean girls and an even meaner boy. At home, her parents and older brother aren't exactly sympathetic to her plight. But one morning Claire's life goes from bad to worse when her dad has a stroke. Now Claire has to deal with dance and middle school drama and the emotional trauma that comes from watching her once strong father deal with the aftermath of his medical condition. The protagonist is a realistic 13-year-old; her struggles with bullies and friends and her attempts to get out of her brother's shadow are relatable. However, while the novel centers on the ways a stroke can affect the dynamics of a family, the story does not go very deep. The writing is only surface level; readers are told more than shown. The plot seems to meander among Claire's life at school, her dancing, and her situation at home, but a balance is never quite met. VERDICT This novel may resonate with some readers but is more of a supplemental purchase.-Paige Garrison, Augusta Richmond County Library System, GA © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
After the trauma of witnessing her father have a stroke, 13-year-old Claire Goldsmith and her family struggle with their new reality. Claire must simultaneously navigate dance-class drama, getting braces (which still manages to feel like the worst day of her life even after her father's affliction), and boys, including former friends and her frustratingly perfect older brother. Told from Claire's perspective, Sonnenblick's story delivers an achingly vivid portrayal of her wide range of emotions as her father returns home still recovering, suffering from aphasia and having trouble with simple tasks like eating with a fork. Claire is a bluntly honest narrator, never holding back even when anger turns to depression and her father starts to waste away ("If I were being a hundred percent honest, I couldn't really say I was thankful he was alive in this condition"). But Sonnenblick (After Ever After) incorporates a message of hope, too: Claire's ordeal gives her new appreciation for the power of music and a more empathic view of those around her. It's a powerful and profound look at a family coping with unexpected change. Ages 12-up. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Middle school is hard enough for thirteen-year-old Claire Goldsmith. She is incessantly teased by two classmates, has an alto sax chair audition coming up, and has been kept a level behind her friends at her dance studio. Plus, puberty is doing a number on her body. She does not think her life can get any worse, but when she witnesses her novelist father having a stroke at the kitchen table, her world is turned upside-down. Bullies become allies, her routines change, and her jovial, silly dad has to relearn everything from feeding himself to communicating clearly, leaving Claire to wonder: How could a man lose everything that made him him? Throughout the course of the story, she learns to recognize that love is about being strong for and knowing when to lean on one another. In Claire, Sonnenblick (Notes from the Midnight Driver, rev. 9/06; Zen and the Art of Faking It, rev. 11/07) crafts a convincing, lightly sardonic narrator, and her bittersweet and hopeful story will likely stay with readers for some time. kazia berkley-cramer (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Claire feels left behind when her best ballet-school friends are unexpectedly elevated to a higher class. She spends the first day of eighth grade coping with menstrual cramps, a zit on her nose, and sniping classmates. But the worst is yet to come: her father has a stroke, making speech and movement difficult. After months of looking inward and trying to carry on normally, Claire realizes she's been avoiding the obvious: she has a role to play in her father's recovery. Although tentative at first, her response enables her to get beyond paralysis, weather the next storm, and move forward with her life. Sonnenblick has a knack for smart, droll first-person narration, and that's as true here as in his earlier books featuring male protagonists. He portrays a diverse group of middle-school kids as interesting individuals, while creating a believable web of relationships among them. From her driven-to-perfection older brother to a vindictive teacher to a mean-girl classmate, the characters and their dialogue are convincing and often entertaining. The book's beginning sounds so much like other, sunnier novels that readers, like Claire, will feel a jolt when the first crisis comes. But they'll stay with her every step of the way.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2016 Booklist