The Half-Orphan's Handbook

February 15, 2021
A young woman spends the summer at a camp for grieving kids and teens in this realistic fiction offering. High school junior Lila, her younger brother, Sammy, and their mother are awash in raw pain and confusion after her father dies by suicide. A counselor suggests Lila and Sammy try Camp Bonaventure in Maine, which is designed for youth who have experienced the death of a close family member. Lila's introspective first-person narration strikes a tone that is spot-on, mixing her grief and bewilderment with flares of anger and overwhelming frustration. Initially resistant to the idea of camp and worried about how her family will afford it, she falls into staying for the whole summer and progressively grows to find it helpful, forges strong friendships with other campers, and finds first love and sexual experience with Noah. Noah's own complicated loss is foreshadowed throughout but not explained until the end in a reveal that some readers may anticipate but that still finds its way to emotional resonance. The novel takes its time, showing the messy intricacies of grief and how people contending with it react and cope in different ways, ultimately ending on an auspicious note. Lila and her family are White; there is some mention of diversity in secondary characters. A tender, honest exploration of finding a way through the impossible. (author's note, resource list) (Fiction. 14-18)

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March 1, 2021

Gr 9 Up-Lila Cunningham's father is dead. She jokes about this as if she's playing a game of Clue: "The father, in the woods, with a rope." But David, her father, wasn't murdered: He took his own life. Like many protagonists-especially women-of trauma novels, Lila quips large. She shows more depth during an argument with her mother, Jenny, about going to Bonaventure grief camp, which Mom gently but firmly asserts is a healing place. Mortified after angrily blaming Jenny for David's death, Lila apologizes for her outburst and attends. The Cunninghams can't afford Bonaventure's steep tuition, so Aunt Shelly pays it. Lila is a track star and top hurdler, and at camp she meets Deese, an athlete she recognizes from home, and her acceptance of his help in training signals Lila's desire to return to "normal" life. Camp offers friendship, though Lila wants answers. Learning, for example, that unlike a fatal accident or illness, suicide is a "preventable" death, doesn't explain how David could have decided to abandon his family. What does help is beginning to learn secrets about her dad, including his gambling addiction, reminding readers how addiction changes people-and how overwhelming and destructive it can be. Lila is white, Deese is Black, and her other friends at camp have various skin tones. VERDICT Set in a New England grief camp, this debut novel's believable characters make plain that suffering the loss of a loved one while young is difficult, and common.-Georgia Christgau, LaGuardia Community Coll., Long Island City, NY

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April 1, 2021
Grades 9-12 In the wake of losing her father to suicide, 16-year-old Lila has formulated two rules: (1) The only people who can truly hurt you are the ones you love. Therefore, love no one. (2) Stay away from liars. Liars are the worst. Meanwhile, she has reluctantly agreed to attend an eight-week grief camp to help bereft kids heal. There she meets Noah, a boy with big, bold eyebrows, and--almost reluctantly (remember rule 1?)--develops a crush on him, and he on her. But then he lies to her, and, in light of rule 2, is reconciliation possible? While there is a romance here, the real focus of this thoughtful book is on Lila's father's suicide, her desperate need to understand why it occurred, and whether she can learn to cope with her loss. In less-talented hands, this could have been an extended exercise in bibliotherapy, but first-time novelist Smith makes it literature instead, with fully developed, memorable characters, vivid verisimilitude, and a tone that perfectly matches her important material. An auspicious debut.

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