The Quick Cut:
A seventeen year old girl finds out the secrets her father held after his sudden death. Grief and a photography class lead her to take a new path in her life.
A Real Review: Thank you to Bloomsbury YA for providing the ARC for an honest review. Death does not come with a schedule. On rare occasions, people know when they are about to die, but in most cases it comes at unexpected times and with very little preparation for it. Because it is unanticipated it can leave those left behind thrown by what they discover of the recently deceased. Do you know the people in your life as well as you thought you did? This is a question that seventeen year old Evie asks when she uncovers secrets her father held after he dies of a heart attack. When Evie's father dies at the end of her junior year, it's a shock that rocks her entire family. No one anticipated him leaving for work one morning and having a heart attack. So when she gets home from the hospital before her mother and sees all her father's belongings packed up - she realizes that her father was planning on moving out and leaving them behind. Why would he do this? Evie discovers later on because he has a mistress.... and her father died a few months before she is due to give birth to their child. How can she think about her future when the image of her father has just been shattered? What will she do now that the man who raised her no longer left behind that rosy image of a loving and dedicated father? Life is complicated and death has this really fun way of highlighting that. Very rarely do we leave this world with all of our affairs perfectly wrapped up and easily taken care of. Alex Richards is easily one of my favorite authors because of how excellent she is at capturing the complex emotions a person has in difficult situations. This release only continues to show just how fantastic she is creating realistic characters who truly struggle like any one of us would in uncomfortable circumstances (at best). Evie is like any other girl in high school who is close to her dad. They have secret jokes, shared hobbies, and fond memories of the times where they bonded over mutual interests. When you have a good relationship with your parents, it's easy to stop seeing them as complex humans and instead see them more as fun friends. So having her father die unexpectedly and leave a horrific mess behind? Not only is she grieving the father that isn't there, but she's grieving the person she thought he was. Rather than being a perfect parent, she has to deal with the fact that her parents did not have a great relationship and that her dad played a big role in that crumbling relationship. Seeing her struggle through that while trying to deal with the grief of her mother? It's an impossible situation with no good way to navigate it and all that awkwardness is captured in the writing. I loved every moment of it because relating to Evie was so easy to do. Another element of this story is the photography class. Beyond the fact that Evie is grieving over her dad, she's also in that super comfortable junior going to be a senior in high school. It's common for everyone to expect you at that age to have a plan for post high school graduation and who you want to be as an adult. I was lucky in the way that I knew my plan at that time in my life, but Evie? She's like many who don't really have a passion that is driving them to take a certain path. With her father gone, that path is even less clear. So when her uncle convinces Evie to take a photography class, she also begins to discover a talent and a skill that she didn't know she had. Watching her start this begrudgingly and then see it turn into something she really enjoys? I rooted for her even more and it also came at a time she really needed it. Again, mirroring what is common in life. Rarely do the paths we take in life happen linearly with one major plot point at a time. Sometimes it feels like everything is coming at us at once and we just need to adapt. There's a realism in how this is captured that speaks to me deeply. A powerful story about the complexities of life captured in a moment of grief. My rating: 5 out of 5