Joy’s a new girl in town, but not totally new. She’s been in the small town of Haven, Utah, for a year now, but this year’s different since Zan, the boy of her dreams and first guy who noticed and cared for her in this town, is now out of the picture. He’s left Haven for a college near Joy’s original home town in California. He’s also left no contact information, no way for them to stay in touch. It’s like he’s disappeared off the map all together, and he never even gave Joy a proper goodbye — nor did he properly end whatever relationship they had.

Now that he’s gone, though, Joy can’t move on. She needs closure, and she’ll get it thanks to the help of Noah, Zan’s ex-best friend and the guy who Joy wants to ignore. But she realizes he could be the key to her closure, and with him, they travel to Zan’s new college and seek him out.

Back When You Were Easier to Love was a book I went into with high expectations, but I left feeling a bit left down. The book is exceptionally fast paced, as chapters are only a page or two long; as a result of this, though, the characters are a little underdeveloped for the complicated and lengthy-feeling plot line. While the pacing and set up certainly mirror Joy’s own journey, the structure wasn’t strong enough for me to forgive the weaker aspects of the story.

As a reader, I wanted to care for Joy: she’s in a really tough spot, being a new girl in a small town. But the thing is, she’s not really a new girl. She’s a new girl only in the sense that the guy she clung to when she was new has left her for college. Rather than use this as an opportunity to slide back into life as she should have a year ago, she instead chooses to fixate on Zan. As a reader, I was annoyed because Joy had no interests outside Zan, both when he was a part of her life and after he leaves her. During the course of the story, we see hints of what her interests are, but so much is focused on her obsession with this boy that she quickly becomes an irritating character. I didn’t quite care about her finding her closure because it seems like something she should have done during the summer between the end of her first year at Haven and the start of the second. Instead, there’s a bit of a gulf in time.

I will admit that this fixation/obsession is well done. Joy blows off everything she has in her life for this guy, including Noah, Zan’s former best friend. Noah was probably my favorite character in the story, as he’s clearly moved on from being ditched by his best friend, and even though he’s moved on, he’s willing to put up with — maybe even encourage — Joy’s obsession because he wants to be a good friend to her. She ignores him and treats him like dirt, yet he still comes back loyally to her. I liked this about his character, but I also wrestled with it because I wanted him to find someone new who’d actually care about him. As much as he wasn’t outwardly struggling with the loss of Zan, it was clear he was internally wrestling with losing a huge part of his social life; the thing is, he was unable to express it because no one would bring it out of him. Joy was far too self-centered to step back and consider what Zan’s departure meant to his best friend.

Zan was never developed as a character to me, and as a result, I found the obsession Joy has frustrating. She describes him as brilliant and gorgeous, but we get little else. It’s clear she’s idealizing him (as seen when she finally gets her closure later in the story), but because I have to believe her for a long time before “meeting” him, I wanted a little more reason to believe in him. I didn’t; perhaps that was because as an adult, I’m under the belief any person who just disappears and doesn’t leave contact information prefers not to be reached. And maybe that person is just a jerk who needs to be forgotten about, too.

What I did enjoy about this book, though, came after Joy finally gets her closure. As a reader, it was what I wanted to happen to her — as painful as it was — and it was through this and this alone that she finally figures out who Noah is and why he’s important. More than that, though, Joy realizes that there’s much more for her to have in Haven, even when she was earlier convinced it was a worthless place to be. Even though the Vegas scenes were strange to me, I let them slide under the belief they’d make Joy a stronger person, and they did. For me, these scenes read a little bit like some of the scenes between Amy and Roger in Morgan Matson’s Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour, meaning they were a little uncomfortable/too much like a honeymoon scene (that is, much older than a teen’s perspective). That said, though, I think most readers who enjoyed Matson’s book will eat this one up because it’s of the same premise of dealing with grief and love through a road trip.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a lot tackled over the course of this fast book, and one of them is faith. This is a Mormon-friendly read, although I felt this aspect of the story really got buried beneath Joy’s obsession with Zan. It’s not until about 3/4 of the way through the book do we see Joy talk more candidly about her spiritual beliefs; this made me sad because I thought had this aspect been amped up sooner in the story, I would have found Joy such a fuller character. Instead, this got a little buried, and part of me wonders if it was the case that had it been a bigger aspect of the story, this book would become too easily labeled as religious ya fiction (a label that carried a certain weight when you use it).

Back When You Were Easier to Love will appeal to those looking for a light-hearted and extremely clean book. Even though I had issues with character development and plausibility within the story, the right readers will overlook this. For them, it’ll be a story of reconciling lost love and moving on into a new relationship. There’s nothing blush-worthy in here, so you don’t have to worry about a heavy or sexual relationship among the characters. It’s definitely a book with greater appeal for female readers, and I’d be comfortable handing it to middle or high school readers.

Review copy picked up at ALA. Smith’s novel will be published by Penguin/Dutton April 28.

Melinda Jensen is 17 and has had one hell of an awful life. Her mom is worthless, she has no father, and the guy who calls himself uncle Jack does little more than take advantage of her. When she decides she’s had enough and needs to leave, she heads through the streets of San Francisco, and that’s when she meets Henry.

Henry offers to take her in, teach her what love is really like, and give her a real family. A place where she can feel safe. The set up is perfect for Mel: this is a family that shares everything. There are plenty of people who live together, love one another, and take care of each other. And every member of this family is interested in helping fulfill Henry’s lifelong dream of becoming a musician — he is, of course, helping them all out by offering such a wonderful place to live and love.

It sounds a little like a polygamous sect, but it’s more of a cult. There’s no marriage involved, and everyone’s following a religion: the religion of Henry. Mel in her story worships him, refers to him in the uppercase Him. Everyone wants to make His dreams come true.

But like any good cult story, things will fall apart. They may even become a little bloody, and everyone will become a suspect, an accomplice to crime.

Family is one creepy story. The book is written in episodic verse, meaning it’s not a standard prose novel and it’s not a standard verse novel. It walks both threads, and it follows a bit of a stream-of-conscious style. We are right inside Mel’s mind, knowing what she’s thinking as she’s thinking it, and it’s messy. As a reader, I appreciated this, but I was also a little put off by it.

If you haven’t put the pieces together or haven’t read much pre-pub buzz about this title, it’s loosely based on the Manson Family murders of the late 1960s. I knew this going in, but I was not completely familiar with the history of the crimes; I decided to begin this novel without the preconceptions of that history in order to judge the book on its own merits, but I found myself pretty lost in Mel’s thoughts because of it. They were almost too loose and fluid, and I didn’t really get an opportunity to feel anything for her as a character. I had to focus too much on the plot and as a result, couldn’t get to know her or connect with what she wanted me to connect with (that being the desire to belong).

A few chapters into the book, though, I familiarized myself with the history of the Manson Family murders and immediately felt much more connected to Mel as a character. I cared less about the story and more about her. I understood why she was so interested in Henry’s music career and why she had decided to bond with this family. I bring this point up simply to state it might be worthwhile to be familiar with this story before diving into the book. A quick read through the wikipedia article will suffice. I’m of mixed feelings about this, too: I think had I not known that this story was loosely based on a real event, I wouldn’t have focused much on that idea and I may have immediately connected with Mel. But that lingered in my mind as I began, and I felt it impacted my reading. For teen readers, I don’t think there will be a problem connecting, but I wish that the novel could stand more on its own, rather than bring up the Manson connection on the jacket copy. On the other hand, perhaps a prologue or epilogue could have cleared up a little confusion or made the connection, as well. It’s possible either of these might be in a finished version of the book.

That said, when I did finally connect with Mel, I really cared about her. It was obvious she drank the Henry koolaid, and she made me believe in why she would even want to do so. I pulled for her, and I worried about her when the “helter skelter” began. I saw it coming from miles away, but her being naive and obsessed with the idea of family, she did not. Since we’re inside her mind, we know this and we really do care about her safety and her future. Mel wanted no part of this aspect of Henry and his family, and instead, she finds herself in a strange place. A place not unlike one Lacey from Carol Lynch Williams’s Miles From Ordinary finds herself. In fact, the last few chapters reminded me greatly of Williams’s book, and I think that on some level, they make for fascinating read alikes because of their explorations of family and belonging.

The exploration of cult dynamics is well-done, and it never tries to veer into other weighty topics like polygamy. It sticks to one aspect of cult dynamics — the kind most generally not accepted anywhere — and it explores how this lifestyle almost mirrors a religious devotion. In this, the non-traditional style of the book works, as Ostow is able to use the page as a way to tell her story. That is, the story isn’t limited to just the words, but also how they look and work on a page, making Henry a God-like figure in not only what Mel thinks but also how it appears.

After finishing and letting this book settle for a while, however, I’m not convinced that the style does the book a lot of favors. There are places it certainly does, but for the most part, I found the style overwhelming to the really great substance within it. It was distracting to read words and thoughts done and also through italics, and at one point, even with a page-long double arrow (<— like this —->). As readers, we’re already inside Mel’s head throughout the story; we don’t really need to see this played out so explicitly on the page. It almost de-emphasizes the seriousness of the story and the real predicaments in which she and the other family members find themselves. Episodic verse itself was a strong medium for the story, as Mel’s thoughts are and should be disjointed, repetitive, and rambling at times. But, the additional elements brought into that verse weakened it.

Family will appeal to readers who want a good creepy story. It’ll have appeal to fans of stories that explore cult dynamics, and it might work for readers of historical fiction. Even though this story is contemporary, there’s a definite late 60s feel to this, with all of the references to Woodstock and hippie lifestyle. As I mentioned, older teen fans of Carol Lynch Williams will enjoy this one, and I think that those who enjoyed Lucy Christopher’s Stolen might enjoy this one, as well. It’d be an interesting comparison, if nothing else. Family will hit shelves April 26.

Review copy received from the publisher.