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Drowning Is Inevitable
Author:
Stanley, Shalanda
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Class:
Fiction
Age: 14-19
Language: English
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LC: PZ7.1
Grade: 9-12
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ISBN-13: 9780553508284
LCCN: 2014042580
Imprint: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Publisher: Random House
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Pub Date: 09/08/2015
Availability: Out of Print Confirmed
List: $17.99
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Hardcover
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Physical Description:
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280 pages ; 22 cm
H 8.56",
W 5.75",
D 0.94",
0.8625 lbs.
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LC Series:
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Brodart Sources:
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Brodart's For Youth Interest: Popular
Brodart's Insight Catalog: Teen
Brodart's TOP Young Adult Titles
Brodart's YA Reads for Adults
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Bibliographies:
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Awards:
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Booklist Starred Reviews
Horn Book Guide Titles, Rated 1 - 4
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Starred Reviews:
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Booklist
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TIPS Subjects:
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Crime/Law Enforcement
Friendship
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BISAC Subjects: |
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Social Themes / Friendship
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Social Themes / Death, Grief, Bereavement
YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Social Themes / Runaways
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LC Subjects:
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Best friends, Fiction
Fathers and sons, Fiction
Friendship, Fiction
Homicide, Fiction
JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Death & Dying
JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Friendship
JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Runaways
Mothers and daughters, Fiction
New Orleans (La.), Fiction
Runaways, Fiction
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SEARS Subjects: |
Runaway teenagers, Fiction
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Reading Programs: |
Lexile Level:
690
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| Annotations |
| Brodart's TOP Young Adult Titles | 09/01/2015 |
| Olivia and her friends set out for New Orleans and struggle to come up with a game plan that won't send them to jail after Olivia accidentally helps Jamie kill his abusive dad. Debut Novel, 288pp. |
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| Starred Reviews: |
| Booklist | 08/01/2015 |
| Grades 9-12. Olivia's 18-year-old mother Lillian walked into the river when baby Olivia was only days old, and Olivia's father and grandmother never recovered. As Olivia approaches that same milestone birthday, her delicate universe--comprised of next-door neighbor BFF Jamie, artsy Maggie, and boyfriend-in-waiting Max--violently spirals out of control and down the road to New Orleans. In her debut novel, Stanley pours her heartfelt devotion to her young main characters onto every page via Olivia's first-person voice of grit and conviction. Each dysfunctional family member dramatically moves Olivia and her friends' understanding of their circumstances forward as well as changes their mindsets so that they might avoid growing up as victims of these damaged past lives. Shady adult accomplices, methodical law enforcement, and media coverage balance the itinerant pace of the fugitive teens' escapade. It won't be easy: drowning was inevitable for Lillian; Olivia's grandmother believes that Olivia is Lillian; and her father is beyond reach in her life thus far. And yet Stanley's gentle touch creates a sanctuary for her characters to develop and ensures the reader that yes, Olivia is our narrator and should be trusted to tell her own grave and stirring tale. Bush, Gail. 288p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2015. |
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| Journal Reviews |
| Horn Book Guide | 05/01/2016 |
| 3. Best friends Jamie and Olivia are virtually "invisible" in their own homes due to their parents' traumas--until a tragic chain of events sets the teens (and their two friends) on the run. Olivia's confessional retrospective narration reverberates with the teens' fierce love for one another, which propels the group's desperate journey to New Orleans, a compelling quest of self-discovery. rf. 280pg. THE HORN BOOK, c2016. |
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| Kirkus Reviews | 07/01/2015 |
| The dance between loss and longing binds Olivia to the ghost of her teen mother in Stanley's debut novel. Her addled grandmother calls Olivia only by her mother's name, Lillian, and her heartbroken father cannot bear her eerie resemblance. In quiet St. Francisville, Louisiana, where townspeople trace her every move, Olivia yearns to be seen as her own person. Boy-next-door Jamie, fearless Maggie, and on-and-off beau Max are the few friends that see Olivia instead of Lillian. At 17, Olivia's only concern is outliving her mother. After a fatal encounter at Jamie's house, the quartet flees to New Orleans for peace and refuge, and Olivia shifts her focus from continuing to live to saving her freedom. The anxious journey defines their friendship, identities, and lives. Stanley submerges a whirlwind of teenage emotion into a satisfying and steady plot. Olivia's voice embodies the teen crisis of self-discovery and the pain of life's unanswered questions. Readers will enjoy the realism of the novel as the characters gain agency in believable ways. Anyone who has endured familial strife will appreciate Olivia and her friends. Realistic yet hopeful--a wide array of readers will enjoy this atmospheric book. (Fiction. 14-18). 288pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2015. |
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| Publishers Weekly | 07/13/2015 |
| Ages 14-up. Seventeen-year-old Olivia has always existed in her drowned mother's shadow: living in her mother's bedroom-turned-shrine, wearing her clothes, saving mementos of her, acting reckless like her, letting her senile grandmother call her by her mother's name, and waiting for her 18th birthday when she'll surpass her mother's age when she died. Fortunately she has her boyfriend, Max, and friends Jamie and Maggie, who understand her thanks to the unhappy parts of their own lives. After a deadly altercation with Jamie's drunken father, the foursome panic, flee their Louisiana town, and hide from the police in New Orleans. Olivia would do anything to protect Jamie, but their plan leads down a path she cannot save him from, though she does find a way to restart her own life. Told from Olivia's insightful point of view, debut author Stanley's novel about loss and unconditional friendship suffers from an overdramatic plot. While the story is moving and ambitious, Stanley doesn't believably tie the novel's two main story threads together, and it further digresses with an extended stay in a crack house and a drug deal gone bad. Agent: Kate McKean, Howard Morhaim Literary Agency. (Sept.). 288p. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2015. |
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| School Library Journal | 07/01/2015 |
| Gr 9 Up. Seventeen-year-old Olivia and her friends are bound together by love, loss, and their refusal to follow the path that fate seems to have chosen for them. Olivia's mother, Lillian, committed suicide on her 18th birthday, just after Olivia was born. Olivia lives in her mother's shadow, in her room, in her clothes; she resembles her mother so much that her grandmother calls her Lillian and her father avoids her. She gains her strength from her soul mate, Jamie, who lives with a violent, alcoholic father; her sometime-boyfriend Max, who is expected to follow in his lawyer-father's footsteps; and the multitalented Maggie, who is ready to escape Louisiana for the artistic possibilities of New York City. The limits of their friendship and loyalty are tested when Jamie and his father clash. Tragedy strikes, and the foursome prove just how far they will go to help those they love. The teens take off for New Orleans, dodging the police and planning their ultimate escape, never knowing who they can or should trust. Although there is plenty of action and suspense, including scenes of drug use and sexual encounters, this is truly an emotional book of family bonds and teen relationships, the power of parental influence, and of fate. VERDICT A well-written debut for teens who enjoy realistic fiction with a focus on the bonds of friendship. MaryAnn Karre, West Middle School, Binghamton, NY. 288p. SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2015. |
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9780553508284,dl.it[0].title
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