This is a coming of age story. Charlie is 17 and enduring the breakup of his parent’s marriage while living with his depressed and possibly alcoholic father. His mother has left him with his dad but taken his sister with her and he feels angry and abandoned. He meets Fran when she takes a mighty fall right in front of him. That is when his shiftless and solitary life takes a turn. Fran is sweet and pretty and 17 and acting in a production of Romeo and Juliet. In an effort to keep seeing her, Charlie joins the play as well.
What follows is a tale of young love and the earnestness and silliness of youth. Charlie is really struggling but he and his fellow actors (most of them) come together in a way that only teenagers engaged in a completely engrossing shared endeavor are able to do. Charlie also grows from a self-destructive and lost teenager into a less self-destructive and lost young adult in a way that feels real but also substantial.
This novel was sweet with a summer camp feel and deals with issues of mental health in a sensitive way.
What follows is a tale of young love and the earnestness and silliness of youth. Charlie is really struggling but he and his fellow actors (most of them) come together in a way that only teenagers engaged in a completely engrossing shared endeavor are able to do. Charlie also grows from a self-destructive and lost teenager into a less self-destructive and lost young adult in a way that feels real but also substantial.
This novel was sweet with a summer camp feel and deals with issues of mental health in a sensitive way.