Fourteen-year-old Emily Kraft has a life plan including a 4.0 GPA, coach sponsorship, & a SUNY scholarshipâuntil her mother dismantles it with another med vacation. Running is the one thing that makes sense & Emilyâs one-way ticket out of a dysfunctional family.
Without explanation, Emilyâs father quits his job & relocates the family to Boston. Itâs a hard sell for Emily & her two sisters. Is their mother still in the hospital? When will she be coming home?
Freshman year arrives w/ additional challenges. Classmates harass Emily about her Indian heritage, & sheâs having panic attacks. Coach Allen discovers she's faster than all the boys on the track field, & relentlessly pursues her so he can exact revenge on a rival.
But healing has a plan of its own. Edin, a new boy at school, bests Emily on the track field, & sheâs forced to examine her reasons for running. A friendship forms between them until students discover the truth about the Kraft family. Rumors fly, triggering Emily's repressed memories.
A story about friendship, healing, & learning how to thrive in the face of horrible truths.
Fourteen-year-old Emily Kraft has a life plan including a 4.0 GPA, coach sponsorship, & a SUNY scholarshipâuntil her mother dismantles it with another med vacation. Running is the one thing that makes sense & Emilyâs one-way ticket out of a dysfunctional family.
Without explanation, Emilyâs father quits his job & relocates the family to Boston. Itâs a hard sell for Emily & her two sisters. Is their mother still in the hospital? When will she be coming home?
Freshman year arrives w/ additional challenges. Classmates harass Emily about her Indian heritage, & sheâs having panic attacks. Coach Allen discovers she's faster than all the boys on the track field, & relentlessly pursues her so he can exact revenge on a rival.
But healing has a plan of its own. Edin, a new boy at school, bests Emily on the track field, & sheâs forced to examine her reasons for running. A friendship forms between them until students discover the truth about the Kraft family. Rumors fly, triggering Emily's repressed memories.
A story about friendship, healing, & learning how to thrive in the face of horrible truths.
NEWSFLASH: MY DADâS APPLYING to work at Finish Line. Not the fancy tri-level mall location in the next town over, but at the âdead mall,â as local kids call it. Dad wants us to start calling our new city The Hub of the Universe. More classy, he says. Yeah. I donât think so.
The store doesnât even have a prime location, just a back-end corridor, smushed between a boarded-up Forever 21 (ironic, right?) and a guy selling phones and pay-as-you-go plans from a cart with spinning rims. Prairie Madness is written on the bling banner that practically shouts âcash grab.â
My eyes keep darting in that direction, so the marketing tactic must be working. Not to mention the popcorn the guyâs giving out for free. FL smells like a movie theater.
âPart-time is great,â Dad says, handing his application to a pimply-faced sales kid. I get the khakis and Polo shirt, but Dad couldâve at least pocketed his ratty baseball cap.
Prairie must be the latest wireless sensation. I wouldnât know. âTech-dunceâ is an actual word in my family, because smartphones are on Dadâs âHot 100â ban list. RenĂ©e doesnât mind having the label. Sheâs smart enough without a phone. Heck, maybe even smarter. But my sister Kaitlin was clearly smitten when we walked by ten minutes ago. She knew better than to ask. Again. Being a senior this year doesnât earn her any extra points. Kaitlin âretail therapyâ Kraft is wandering the dead mall buying a new outfit while RenĂ©e and I are stuck waiting for Dad to peddle another application.
âAre you getting this, Emily?â RenĂ©e asks. Iâm supposed to be playing âcamera guy.â
âHow is that relevant to the latest court ruling?â She offers an imaginary microphone to a mannequin outfitted with a jog bra and glam lashes, one of its hands dangling by a thin wire, index finger pointing to the floor. Journalist-in-training has been RenĂ©eâs middle name lately, and for good reason.
âNo way!â the sales kid says. âYou worked for the Department of Defense? So, like, you could dish details about your job, but then youâd have to kill me?â He snort-laughs.
Cringe. I can hear him clearly even though Uptown Funk is playing at full volume. The store is so cheery bright it borders on violent. Even the shadows have nowhere to hide.
âAre evenings okay?â Dad asks.
âDay shift only,â the kid says.
âNo exceptions?â
âIâll have to talk to our manager.â He walks away carrying Dadâs application, his lower arm in a cast. I duck behind a sales rack, worried he goes to my school, and our family drama will be Mondayâs Headline News.
Dad eyeballs me and raises a wait-a-minute finger. Pit sweat is not his best look. Who can blame him for being nervous? Heâs a Yale grad applying for a job that probably pays eight bucks an hour. Itâs not exactly a new low, because our family has seen lots of those, but this is seriously hard to witness.
âThis jobâs only temporary, Emily,â Dad said during our drive to the dead mall. Temporary is our familyâs neon sign. I can hear the faint buzz every time another change looms on our horizon.
âJust something to supplement my painting jobs until I can build a customer base.â
âYou should try a website, Dad,â Kaitlin said. âJoin the twenty-first century.â
Her sarcasm was just for show. Like I said, she knows better. And whether or not a man was actually found dead in his car in the mall parking lot is up for grabs. I donât yet have a sense of real versus fiction. True or not, it ticks the right boxesânew family in Beantown, missing one person, hiding a huge ass secret.
RenĂ©eâs back is turned, so I search the shoe wall, find the running sneakers I wantâSaucony Kinvara, white and gold upper, red soles. Iâm practically drooling while the flat screen plays a Strangest Moments Olympic track and field event video. Glancing at my father, now talking to a pretty blond woman half his age who must be the manager, I can only agree.
The video narrator says, âFor a sprinter, a good start can be the difference between achieving everlasting glory and being forgotten forever.â
Standing on carpet designed as a track, ogling my dream sneakers, listening to Olympic cheers, I almost forget who I am.
â...a sprinterâs training is geared towards getting out of the blocks as quickly as possible.â
I consider trying on the sneakers, but then wonder if Iâll be able to take them off instead of dashing out the door, setting off alarms, maybe grabbing a phone and a bag of popcorn, and six-minute-mile-it all the way home. Thatâs three hundred and fifty-two point eight miles. Not that Iâm counting or anything. Option two: size five sneakers tucked in my shoulder bag.
Iâve wanted a pair of Kinvaras since a classmate wore them to Kenton Regionalâs Spring Fling dance, my old school in upstate New York. That was months ago, but I just have to own a pair. Running is my thing. But am I willing to steal them?
With a family like mineâthree states, six towns, and four schools since I started kindergartenârunning is pretty much assured, and the one thing I can say about myself that makes a morbid kind of sense. At the end of eighth grade, I wrote down my high school goals, like an actual timeline loaded with smiley face stickersâ4.0 GPA, coach sponsorship, consistently improving T & F stats in line with a SUNY scholarship. Track and field was my one-way ticket out. But that was before Mom screwed up my life plan.
I examine the running shoe, turn it over, trace my fingers along the knobby red sole. âTry me!â the neon green tag says. âEight ounces, our lightest most comfortable shoe yet.â Of course Iâll never know because the next tag I look at is the price. One twenty. Thatâs not even likely to show up under the Christmas tree this year. Dad quit his five-star job at the DOD to pursue a career in paint brushes and buckets and drop cloths. Yay.
Collective sighs erupt from the Olympic stadium as the video narrator says, âChristie blows it. Heâs out. Three false starts, and his dream of being an Olympic gold medalist are over.â Christie falls to his knees. Christieâs face is in his hands. Just like that. Poor guy. Pity sale: check
Iâm about to slide the shoes into my backpack when my sister Kaitlin walks up carrying a Gap bag, last weeksâ birthday money blown already, no doubt. RenĂ©e says retail therapy is Kaitlinâs coping mechanism and its effectiveness will wear off once she realizes feelings canât be masked with excessive consumerism.
âThose are cool,â Kaitlin says. I canât tell if she knows I was about to Strategically Take Equipment to Another Location.
I try and put the sneakers back but they ricochet to the floor, sending three more pair cascading down with it.
âNice, clodster!â Kaitlin eyeballs Dad. The manager is shaking her head. I know what the frown means. Another no. Third one today.
âCare to comment?â RenĂ©e shoves the mannequinâs pointing index finger under my chin. Her objective journalist persona is lacking, because she looks like sheâs about to cry. Or call me out on my pathetic attempt at a five finger discount.
âUgh. Thatâs just wrong.â I grab the âmicâ and fling it over my shoulder; It lands with a thud beyond the nearest clothing rack.
âHey!â RenĂ©e says. âHostile witness.â
I will my heart to slow and return shoes to their boxes all mixed up, red paired with black and the blue ones facing the wrong way and the packing tissue strewn about, feeling awkward and ridiculous and wishing I was ten blocks up the road with my stolen goods. Anywhere. But. Here. Three ticks on the ridiculous meter and another three for embarrassment.
Kaitlin pulls a cell phone from her pocket.
âSeriously?â I say. âDid you buy it from that dude? If Dad finds out, heâll ground you for a month. Maybe longer.â
Kaitlin delivers her, âYouâre a total dumbassâ pout. She has a face like Meg Ryan and a hundred different smiles. The pout pisses me off, but secretly I envy it.
âNo,â she says, all casual-innocent. âIâm borrowing it from Sarah.â
Sarah is her new bestie. Three weeks and she already has a friend willing to share a phone. I havenât even spoken to anyone yet, Cambridge Highâs track field is layered in three inches of mud, and the coach is a hack.
Three hours, three applications, and three âNoâsâ later, we finally make it home.
Kaitlin skips to her bedroom, saying sheâs too tired for dinner, but I know sheâs going to play with that phone. Iâm not sure who Iâm rooting for here. If she gets caught, Iâll have to hear her whine and complain while she's on lockdown. But it would be nice to Duck Duck Go something without fighting over the computer, which is nonsense because who the hell wants to share one computer with two teenage sisters.
I have no intention of dealing with the potential cell fallout, so after dinner I head to the backyard. I call it that, but itâs hardly what you might consider cozy. Our house is not a house, but an apartment (more like compartment) in one of those too-big-for-its-own-good complexes where the tennis courts host tennis balls but not rackets, because itâs just a stand-in for a dog park where people leave turds behind, and they stink and itâs unsanitary. The maintenance crew and staff gave up pretty early, as I imagine, because even though you can tell people whatâs in their best interest, they commonly donât pay attention.
I climb my favorite oak, settle on the highest branch I can safely reach, and scan the night sky. Funny, because even though it looks like the same sky, it isnât. Hardly.
Too many false starts.
Momâs usual med vacation didnât end in a party celebrating her return; it stretched into three months at the hospital. Her room is now empty, our âGet Well Soonâ flowers wilting in some landfill barge by now, chugging its way up the Hudson. Sheâs probably wearing red shoes and a white and gold jumper stamped: Albion Womenâs Correctional Facility, New York. Or dead. I wouldnât know. I donât have a sense of real versus fiction. Not yet.
If I blink just right, stretch out on the solid limb beneath me, I can imagine it differently. Maybe without all the secrets. Or a different outcome.
Three months ago, on a night like this, the stars were out âblazing like nobodyâs business,â as my mother called it. Which was her way of saying not just a few winking in the moonless sky, but a whole tapestry so close I couldâve reached out and pulled in each one, worn them on my fingers like diamonds. After a week of near-constant clouds and rain, spending time with my mother wasn't high on my to-do list.
âWhat are you wishing for?â she asked.
Cricket song filled the space between us, and one lonely owl, hooting in the distance. Elm and oak were silhouetted against the sky, spring buds clamped shut, waiting for warmer weather.
âOh, come on, Em,â she said. âYou don't really believe in that nonsense about ruining your wish because you couldn't keep it secret, do you?â She interlaced her fingers with mine. Her hand was rough and calloused.
âNo.â I tried to sound offended.
âLike there's some tattletale fairy with an iPad and a long list of blabber mouths.â Mom laughed like a choking frog. Sheâd been smoking more since her release from the hospital. The scent clung to her skin like an extra set of clothingânot vile, but haughty, like she did it on purpose to keep people away.
She squeezed my hand. âYou can tell me.â
I believed in keeping wishes close to my heart, not because of some bogus name-collecting fairy, but because it was the first time in a long while I actually had a wish. But saying it out loud wouldâve hurt her too much, and I couldnât break her heart like that, like sheâd been breaking mine my whole life.
Instead, I said, âTwo scoops, not one.â
She released my hand, and I followed her in from the patio where weâd been observing the spring sky.
âWanna know what I wished for?â She opened the freezer and pulled out a pint of vanilla ice cream. The cold air felt good and not just because of the hot, humid kitchen. I'd gotten pretty good at hiding truths from my mother, except for the flush on my cheeks.
âOkay.â It was one of her more lucid moments, so of course I agreed.
âI wish honey bees lived longer than six weeks.â
âWhy?â
âBecause theyâre amazing. And gentle.â She set the ice cream and two bowls on the kitchen table. âThey have to gather nectar from two million flowers to make one pound of honey. Doesnât give them much time to bother anyone, now does it?â She eyed me, one of those sideways glances when she was thinking hard.
âTwo million? Thatâs not true,â I said.
âSure it is. In fact, five hundred and fifty-six bees have to fly ninety thousand miles to make one pound of honey. Thatâs three times around the Earth. If thatâs not love, I donât know what is.â She tried to make a heart shape with her hands, but it looked more like a square.
My mother loved gathering facts. Odd, given the way her life turned out, but it was just one of her inconsistencies, one of many. It took me about ten of my fourteen and a half years to realize my motherâs truth was different than other peopleâs. Itâs not that hers held less than the whole truth: sometimes they held much more, only I couldnât tell exactly which times.
âIâm changing my wish,â I said. âMake mine two scoops with honey.â
Yeah. So. That was three months ago. A lot has changed since then. And a lot has stayed the same. Exactly the same. But that was the first and last time I put honey on my ice cream.
Itâs silly, really, thinking about that moment, now that Iâm wishing for something completely differentâless big picture, more small frame.
Maybe a part of me knew back then. Not like the way I know facts, like intellectually or something I could easily put into words. But like that stomach punch I get when thinking about my mother. Not so much like having the floor pulled out from under me, but the way she yanks it sideways, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, because she can. The finish line keeps moving just when I think I have a solid feel for it, or at least a tenuous hold. But thatâs what life is like in our family. I wonder if Dad feels it too. After all those noâs today, he has to. Right?
Some quick trigger warnings before we get into the review: this book prominently features mental health disorders, specifically bipolar and anxiety disorders. With that in mind, there are instances of animal abuse, manic episodes, and legal jargon.
In the effort of fairness, I think that this book is a really interesting look into bipolar disorder from the viewpoint of both a family member (aka a loved one), and a child. Execution-wise, it is a little off, and I'm not sure why exactly I feel that way, but let me break a few things down.
Graham uses a lot of acronyms throughout the story. And while common acronyms such as "OMG" or "LOL" are universal in today's society, Graham used some acronyms where I had to step outside of the book for a minute to piece together what those letters could mean. As a reader, the last thing I want is to have the veil drop and to come out of the story.
I enjoyed the idea that we are transported between Emily's past and her present. It gives us a chance to piece together what happened with her mom, and how we got here. However, those sections bled together a lot, and there were many times where I was sure it was the past when it was the present or vice versa. Once again, a really cool concept, but it was a little too blurred.
As for the concepts of mental health, I think this is one of the first books where I have read about bipolar disorder in an adult. I personally don't think there are enough young adult authors who talk about mental health, and I applaud Graham for taking the plunge. This book takes on a more severe case of the disorder, but with these extremes, we can take a look into treatment plans, how the people around the disorder are affected by it, and the overall stigmas behind it. I think that the accounts of mental health in this book are very good, though sometimes hard to read.
I'll admit that I was not a huge fan of the writing style, but that is a preference. I'm going to give this book 3 out of 5 stars, and I really hope that you will read it and see how unique this book really is.