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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Monmouth Public Library | YA Fic Reinhardt, D. 2008 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
HARPER'S DAD IS getting a divorce from her beloved stepmother, Jane. Even worse, Harper has lost her stepsister, Tess; the divorce divides them. Harper decides to escape by joining a volunteer program to build a house for a family in Tennessee who lost their home in a tornado. Not that she knows a thing about construction.
Soon she's living in a funky motel and working long days in blazing heat with a group of kids from all over the country. At the site, she works alongside Teddy, the son of the family for whom they are building the house. Their partnership turns into a summer romance, complete with power tools. Learning to trust and love Teddy isn't easy for Harper, but it's the first step toward finding her way back home.
From the Hardcover edition.
Author Notes
Dana Reinhardt lives in Los Angeles with her husband and her two daughters. This is her third novel. She is the author of A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life and Harmless .
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Dana Reinhardt's novel (Wendy Lamb Books, 2008) is well suited to the audio format--it's character driven, thoughtful, and rife with both interior monologue and witty repartee among characters. Seventeen-year-old Harper makes a proactive decision when things go wrong in her personal life--her parents' divorce and two important friendships go awry--and joins a summer volunteer program to help rebuild a house destroyed in a Tennessee tornado. As a secular Jewish girl from Los Angeles, Harper has a lot to learn in semi-rural Tennessee even before getting involved with a biracial boyfriend. Reinhardt treats cultural diversity, divorce, and bleded families with grace. Caitlin Greer voices a credible Harper, but some of her Southern accents for other characters are flat or, worse, caricatures. Pacing of both story and reading are good. Harper's issues, including her journey to build a house and rebuild her own life, are accessible to teens and the solutions are realistic.-Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia, Canada (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Reinhardt artfully parallels the construction of a house with the reconstruction of a broken family in a work as intimate and intelligently wrought as her previous YA novels, A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life and Harmless. Shaken by the recent divorce of her father and stepmother and her separation from stepsister and best friend, Tess, Harper Evans jumps at the chance to participate in a summer program in a small Tennessee town, where she and other high school students will build a new house for a family whose home was destroyed by a tornado. Harper aims to bury herself in physical labor to forget about problems back in L.A., but gets sidetracked when she falls in love with Teddy, one of the house's intended residents. Weaving flashbacks of Harper's home life before and after the divorce into the romance between Harper and Teddy, Reinhardt builds a story within a story: one exploring reasons the heroine feels betrayed, the other focusing on how she learns to trust again. This meticulously crafted book illustrates how both homes and relationships can be resurrected through hard work, hope and teamwork. Ages 12-up. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) Knowing nothing about house-building but loads about how a home can fall to pieces, seventeen-year-old Harper volunteers to help build a house for a family that lost theirs in a tornado. The distance from L.A. to Bailey, Tennessee, isn't enough to escape her grief for her broken-up family and her frustration with her friend Gabriel. Soon, however, she finds friendship and more with Teddy, son of the family whose house they're building, who is working alongside the other teens signed up for the twelve-week project. Teddy's home and belongings are gone, but his family survived the tornado intact; Harper's house is still standing, but she has lost to divorce her beloved stepmother, who has moved out with Harper's little half-brother and two stepsisters, one of whom is Harper's best friend. As Harper helps rebuild Teddy's home, Teddy helps Harper salvage her family relationships. Sections alternate between "Here" and "Home" as likable narrator Harper catches readers up on her past; the many parallels between the house-building and the home-wrecking (then rebuilding) are clearly drawn but subtle and believable. Readers will find this story full of difficulty and pain -- but ultimately deeply satisfying. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Sixteen-year-old Harper lost her mother when she was two years old. Her father subsequently married Jane, a lawyer with two daughters, Rose and Tess, who became Harper's best friends. But because of her father's infidelity, Jane has left, and Harper's ideal home has been torn apart. The novel begins with Harper aboard a flight from her home in California to Bailey, Tenn., where she has joined a volunteer project to rebuild a house destroyed by a tornado. Scenes from the past alternate with Harper's present-tense account of her summer to provide background for her emotional travails. There: stepsister Tess seethes at her stepfather's betrayal; here: construction partner Teddy becomes increasingly attractive as more than a building buddy. The author juxtaposes the metaphorical (Harper learns to rebuild her own "house") with the concrete in a well-paced first-person narrative spiced with summer flings and teen romance. Readers will find Harper absolutely charming, even at her most sardonic moments. (Fiction. 13 & up) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
When you live in California and have relatives in New York, everything in between feels like a big inconvenience, says 17-year-old Harper. But even the middle of the country sounds better to Harper than her own home, which feels empty since her stepmother and stepsiblings moved out. Harper is also eager to leave Gabriel, her sort-of boyfriend behind, so she signs up as a summer volunteer to build houses for tornado victims in Bailey, Tennessee. In chapters that alternate between recollections of her past year and her Tennessee summer, Harper slowly reveals the events in L.A. that led to heartbreak and then the healing work, friendships, and romance she finds in Bailey. Reinhardt adds great depth to the familiar story of a teen changed by a summer escape with strong characters and perceptive, subtle explorations of love, family, sex, and friendship all narrated in Harper's believable voice. Teens, especially young women on the verge of independence, will see themselves in Harper, her questions, and her resilient heart.--Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2008 Booklist