Friday Never Leaving by Vikki Wakefield came out in the US September 10, but it came out last year in Australia as Friday Brown. While I read the Australian version, from what I’ve figured out, little about the book has changed in the process — except the title, some of the words (I’m assuming words like “pram” were Americanized), and the cover. While it looks like a drowning girl on the cover of the US version on the left, it’s actually a perfectly fitting cover to some of the content in the story. But I think I do have a slight preference for the Australian cover, shown below. It, too, is a moment from the book and perhaps sums up the feeling of the story in a way that the US one doesn’t quite capture. 

Friday Brown has always lived her life moving from place to place. Her and mother Vivienne didn’t stay long anywhere. They ran from their pasts, from the family curse of death by water, to new places with new hopes. But when Vivienne dies — the first woman in the family to not be taken out by the curse, not quite — Friday is living with her grandfather and she feels unsettled. Being in one place, that stasis, doesn’t fit with her soul. And she certainly can’t wrap her mind around her losses. 

So she leaves.

Friday takes up residence with a group of other homeless teenagers after running into a homeless boy named Silence at the train station. He saved her and brought her back to the squatter house, where she quickly finds herself entranced with Arden. Arden entranced me too; she was powerful, she had a mystique about her, and she was captivating. She’s the kind of girl who catches and captures attention. 

And Arden knows this. She abuses it. 

She is a woman with power.

When the squatters move on to the Outback, to a place where no one else is around them, Arden truly asserts her power and dominance. It doesn’t sit well with Friday nor most of the others in the crew, but it is Friday who challenges her. And it is Friday who pays the consequences for it. 

But when Friday sees her life nearing an end, after losing a friend, can she figure out how to find the place she truly needs to be? Is there such thing as stability? How do you pick yourself up again when everything you once knew is turned on its head? When the mother you thought you knew wasn’t truly the person you thought she was? When moving doesn’t mean freedom but instead means imprisonment? When finally you allow yourself the opportunity to grieve your losses and pick up the pieces for yourself? 

Is it possible to be whole again and what does that look like? 

Wakefield does an incredible job of exploring at the complexities of people. While the relationships she creates between these people is equally complex, they never quite got to the level I’d hoped for. Arden is intriguing, but we never see her power exerted until the very end. We know of it — Friday tells us about it — but I wanted more. In ways it’s that not seeing which makes it scary, but to experience the full intensity, I wanted to see the full Arden. 

I loved the relationship that emerged between Friday and Silence, though; she listened to him and she GOT him. She got his insistence that love and memory mattered, that someone is never really gone, ever, if you keep them in your mind and your heart. That learning people aren’t always what they seem on the surface is hard, but it doesn’t change the fact that love is something you have the right to choose to give; it’s not automatic. 

Wakefield’s writing in Friday Never Leaving is exquisite and literary. Friday is quiet and she’s observant about the world around her, particularly when it comes to Silence. The way she lovingly describes and engages in her world is easy to fall into, even if it’s not pretty — and it’s not. The losses she’s suffered in her life, and the life she led with mom that was never about stability or ease are not pretty things. The curse in her family, which almost gets her as well, doesn’t offer us a reason for Friday to maintain the sort of optimism about her future and the world around her, and yet she does. 

I think there is serious potential for this to be talked about for the Printz this year. It’s challenging, multi-layered, and the writing is just damn good. I wanted to mark page after page for some of the thoughts that Friday shared and the truths she discovered. It’s an achey read, not a feel-good read, and I suspect that even though I liked-not-loved it, the story and Friday’s voice will remain with me for quite a while.



It’s hard to put a finger on exactly what this book reads like, but I think it’s a bit of a combination of Kirsten Hubbard’s Like Mandarin in terms of relationships and power wielding within them, with a bit of Holly Cupala’s Don’t Breathe a Word, when it comes to choosing life as a homeless teen. Pass this one along to readers who want a contemporary title that’s literary, that explores relationships, and that really tackles more questions than it offers answers — and perhaps that’s why this is a book that lingers and has a slower burn. There’s more to wonder than there is to know. 

Friday Never Leaving is an excellent title, too, for those readers who want books set abroad. Perhaps pair this one with Simmone Howell’s Everything Beautiful or Melina Marchetta’s realistic novels.  I’m really eager to dive into some more Australian contemporary. While I’ve read a little bit, I think Wakefield’s novel might be the one that encourages me to wade even deeper into these waters. 

Friday Never Leaving is available now from Simon and Schuster. My copy was sent to me from Adele, along with a pile of other Aussie novels I am eager to read. 

I’m going to go ahead and say from the start that Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl didn’t work for me and that in order to explain why that’s the case, this review will be spoiler heavy. I don’t think any of the spoilers will ruin the reading for anyone who picks up the book at all, but I also want to be fair in giving that head’s up. 

Cather and sister Wren are beginning their first year of college at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln — a few hours west of their home town of Omaha — and while Wren is excited for the experience, Cath couldn’t be dreading it more. Not only does it mean adjustment, but it also means that she’s going to have less time to devote to the fandom. That was and is her biggest passion. 

Cath writes fanfic about Simon Snow, the fictional lead character of a series of wildly popular children’s books (think Harry Potter). But she not only writes it; she’s well-known and popular as a fanfic writer, and she’s earned legions of fans who eagerly await her next installment of the story she’s developed between Simon and secondary male character Baz. She’s built herself a world all her own in the fandom. 

But while Fandom about fandom and fanfiction, it’s really not just about that. Cath has to learn to navigate begin in a new place, in a roommate situation that has her learning to adjust to the quirks and charms of a new roommate who isn’t Wren. Because Wren doesn’t want to live with her. Wren wants something new. Wren may or may not have a few problems of her own drinking, for one, which causes her to end up in the hospital one night. Wren’s also been known to be friendly with more than a single boy, too. In other words, she’s a bit like a stereotypical college freshman who is indulging in her first taste of freedom and adulthood. She’s exploring, making choices — even if they aren’t always good for her. 

Then there’s Levi, the cute-haired boy who may or may not be in a relationship with Cath’s roommate Reagan. Then there’s Cath’s father, who suffers from depression at home. Then there’s Cath and Wren’s mother who stepped out of their lives years ago — it was that departure of her mother that led Cath to the fandom in the first place. And then there’s the advanced-level Fiction-Writing course that Cath was let into and that she’s managed to earn an incomplete in (though thankfully, her professor wants to give her an extension and a second chance since she shows real promise). There’s the boy she’s been partnered with in the class, too, who may or may not be stealing Cath’s writing and passing it off as his. 

Can Cath possibly continue her streak with the fandom? Can she come to terms with who she is in the midst of the fandom? Or does she need to come to terms with herself in spite of it? And what happens if people are on to her? With scads of fans, someone on campus HAS to know she’s the person behind Carry On.

Over the course of this single freshman year in Cath’s life — one which we’re reminded again and again drags on like a lifetime in a way that no other year does — so much and so little happens at the same time. We’re given passages between the chapters of Cath’s story that showcase the original Simon Snow text and the fanfic that Cath herself has written. 

Except.

We don’t actually get to see the fandom. 

We see Cath’s writing, but in no way does Cath’s writing actually showcase the importance of the fandom to her nor her notoriety within the fandom. We know OF the people who admire her work and seek it out. But we don’t know them. And we don’t know the value of them to her because we never actually see it. Instead, we’re giving the very superficial elements of it — the writing itself. The heft of meaning here is removed because we’re told, not shown, what it is. 

What Rowell does in Fangirl is offer too many unsatisfying plot threads on a very shallow level, and it’s presented in such a way that Cath herself is never a complete character. There’s not only a lack of an arc to her (again, we know OF things because it’s told to readers, but we don’t actually know them because we don’t get to see or experience them along with Cath), but her character is inconsistent. She’s unlikable and not in a way that’s actually interesting. She’s cold and aloof, and she’s judgmental. Obviously these elements make her real and they make her relatable in many ways (I saw a lot of myself in Cath and many others will too — particularly the inconsistencies, the anxieties, and the sometimes-borderline paranoia she experiences in her new world) but she never is able to give us more than a passing glance at why she is this way. 

She just is. 

In many ways, the exploration of fandom is meant to give us further insight into Cath and her behavior except it never does. Where we could get to know her through her fanfic — just like her followers do — we don’t get to because she never shares with us why she continues to seek and validate her own identity through it. 

We see the fiction. We don’t see the heart.

I never bought the romance or chemistry between Cath and Levi because I never saw her actually seeing him as someone more than simply his good hair and his always-there presence. He does a lot of nice things for her, but she never seems all that into it. In many ways, she almost expects it. It was surprising to me he continued to seek her out when she was so cold and distant. And it doubly surprised me that she had TWO boys who were interested in her. 

Maybe part of the problem is we never know the stakes here. Are there any? At least in Cath’s own world, there really aren’t. If she gives up the fandom, she loses personal fulfillment. But she would find it at college because there is a world of college to fulfill her. If she’s found out as being a huge fanfic writer, what happens? She earns notoriety on campus — and there is no possible way that there are not other fans of Simon Snow on campus who wouldn’t seek her out to develop some sort of social group around their shared passion. 

This leads me to the biggest issues in the book, which are the underdeveloped plot points that could have been either dug into further or left out all together. Did Cath and Wren’s father need to be seriously unstable? It makes sense, but the turn around and recovery is near-instant. One minute he’s hospitalized, and not too long later, he’s stable and fine. Likewise, why the sudden reemergence of mom? It seems out of left field that mom would want to suddenly know her girls again, after being out of their entire teen lives. And the turnaround there is also instant. While it’s believable so much could and does happen in a year, the way these two events played out was superficial and because they’re so big and complex, the surface-level treatment makes them easy to write off. 

Wren develops a drinking problem in college, and it’s when she’s hospitalized that Cather finally has to come face to face with the mom she’s been avoiding (and frankly, I was team Cath here on completely avoiding the mother who was out of her life, even though the story read in a way that suggested she should feel guilty and bad about not wanting to reestablish that connection). Since Cath and Wren aren’t living together, there’s been a giant wedge driven between them at school — almost to the point they don’t even know one another. But we never get to know Wren except through Cath’s skewed perception, and it’s this one-sided, weak development that in many ways is how Cath herself is propped up as a character. Wren drinks. Wren sleeps with boys. Wren gets hospitalized. Cath, on the other hand, lives in her head, in her fanfic, avoids social interaction, and nothing “bad” happens to her. But with the hospitalization, their relationship is patched up because they’re able to “bond” over their thoughts about having mom back in their lives. It’s a way-too-cleanly-resolved scene that begged for much more development — or for being left out all together. 

So with all of that going on, there’s another wrench thrown in, and that is that Levi has a learning disorder where he is unable to read. He needs to listen to people reading to him in order to grasp knowledge. 

If you’re keeping tally at this point, we have the mentally ill father, the absent-but-seeking-connection mother, the sisters who are drifting apart, the sister with a drinking problem, the boy from her fiction class who may be stealing her writing, the teacher who is a stock character that “believes in Cath’s potential as a writer,” and the potential boyfriend who has a learning disorder. None of these threads alone are bad. It’s when they’re all thrown into one story — even if it’s meant to be a way of explaining how freshman year at college can feel like an eternity — that things become unbelievable. They’re shallowly developed and unsatisfying. But worse, they don’t contribute anything to Cath’s character arc.

As mentioned earlier, Cath is inconsistent in the story. She’s at one minute very “worldly” — she talks about how she grew up in the most culturally-rich, ethnically-diverse area of Omaha and she quickly judges her school not for her because of how many blonde, white girls wander around. But then down the road, she talks about how she doesn’t know what a ranch is nor does she have any concept of country life. Yes, Omaha is a city. However, Omaha is saddled between Nebraska and Iowa, which base their livelihoods on farming and ranching. If she’s so rich culturally, it’s shocking to see what she does and doesn’t know. She’s sheltered but she’s not. She writes gay fanfic, which suggests an open-mindedness to her, but she IS so judgmental externally — she’s near shaming people who choose to enjoy sex and she makes a rape joke early on with Levi that felt inappropriate at the moment and even more inappropriate as their relationship actually develops. And her voice and perspective doesn’t change. It’s one-dimensional.

What of fandom here, then? I’m left wondering if Rowell’s point that fandom can be positive and fulfilling and exciting is actually lost here and whether or not she unintentionally makes the opposite point because she doesn’t allow readers to see what it adds to Cath’s life. We only know the surface. We never know the depth, even though we know there is depth (and how I wanted that depth — I don’t know fandom, but I know the value it has added to many people’s lives and…why wasn’t that here?). Likewise, the passages of Simon Snow and the fanfic were, frankly, boring. Again, it goes back to the fact we don’t know what the fandom is to Cath or what she’s getting from it. So I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be getting from it either. It read a bit like creatively-packaged info dumping.

Part of me wonders if there is an in-crowd to this book. Because I’m not in the fandom, because I don’t read fanfiction, am I just an outsider to it? If I don’t “get” it without seeing it, is the book not meant for me as a reader? That seems like a huge and unfair leap — and I doubt that’s the intention here. But I can’t help feeling like because I’m not one of the cool crowd — that I’m not Cath or like Cath — then, well, too bad. 

The editor of this book called it “Literature with a capital L” in her buzz session at BEA, but I couldn’t disagree more. This isn’t spectacular writing. At times, it’s clumsy and awkward, and there are lengthy passages which don’t add anything to the story. There’s nothing Literary here. And that’s not to suggest there’s not a readership to this book (there certainly is!) nor that the writing is bad (it’s not). Rather, it’s to say this is no Literature. The story is told through third person point of view, which almost makes the writing tougher to buy as literary because we’re not getting it direct from Cath herself. There’s a step back and a removal from the immediacy of story. So the weak turns of phrase aren’t actually because it’s who Cath is or how she receives and perceives her world first-hand.

I’d hoped for a more open ending, one which would suggest that things aren’t neatly packaged nor wrapped up, but I got the neat bow. It in many ways is precisely what Cath said she hoped to deliver to her own readers, and while it could have been satisfying for the readers of Fangirl to get it, because there are so many plot threads too neatly tied up already, it was more of a let down that a satisfying resolution. 

Though this book is being sold as YA — and it will certainly appeal to a lot of teen readers and YA readers more broadly — this doesn’t read like a YA book. It reads like an adult book. It reminds me of chick lit, and that’s not meant in a mean or belittling sense. I spent a long time thinking about what would have made this YA as opposed to adult, and I think it comes down to this: the YA story here was how Cath got into the fandom after her mother’s sudden departure when she was a teenager. The YA of it would be seeing Cath find a safe space in this world and developing the friendships and connections she does in Simon Snow’s fan world. But instead, we get the well after in this book. We see Cath years after she’s developed this presence. We don’t see development therein. We don’t see a “coming of age” or “coming to understanding” of the value of this fandom because we don’t actually see the fandom or the world therein. We see Cath in her first year of college — a snap shot into her life — and we see the romance developing between her and Levi at the forefront. Again, not to belittle the story. It’s not. The YA book was elsewhere in the story, in those flash backs and in the back story. What we got was the adult book. 

There will be plenty of people who love this book and I see why. But this book and the writing are imperfect and left me with far more questions than answers — and not in the way I like to leave a story with questions. This left me wanting, rather than satiated. I’m sure those readers for whom this book is ideal and who “get” it will overlook the issues without problem. 

Pass Fangirl off to readers who want a story about fanfiction and fandom. Pass it off, too, to readers who want books set in college or about figuring out who and what you are when you’re put into a new situation. Readers who liked Rowell’s style and storytelling in Eleanor & Park will likely appreciate Fangirl as well. And, of course, this book is great for your adult readers who love YA. It’s an ideal crossover title. 

Fangirl will be available tomorrow, September 10, from St. Martin’s Press. Review copy received from the publisher. 

Evan likes sex.

Or rather, Evan likes sex when it is easy.

He’s got a radar for this kind of thing. He sees the girl he knows will be down for getting down, he gets involved with her, they have sex, and then he moves on to the next one.

Evan can get away with it when he’s away at school. It’s never been a problem before because he’s grown up moving around a lot with his father’s job.

But this time, he meets Collette, and she is a challenge for him. Rather than be turned off by her being a challenge, though, Evan’s into it. And he pursues her because even though she’s playing hard to get, he has it in his head he can get with her. And he does. The real challenge isn’t getting with Collette though. It’s keeping their getting down a secret.

Of course, things can change in an instant. Evan finds this out after a trip to the shower. After having his body beaten by a couple of classmates who didn’t like the little game he plays. Because this time, he picked the wrong girl.

Collette is the ex-girlfriend of his roommate.

That’s where Carrie Mesrobian’s debut Sex & Violence begins. In one chapter, you meet Evan, his desire for sex, then you meet him as he finds himself the victim of violence. Following that introduction, you’re thrown into Evan learning how to reassess his own priorities when it comes to what it is he wants. He’s fearful in a way he’s never been before. What once came easily to him — the ability to seek out a girl and sleep with her consequence-free — is precisely why he’s fearful. The consequences presented themselves in a brutal manner.

Evan’s taken out of school after a stint in the hospital which didn’t heal him of all his physical wounds and certainly didn’t do much for his mental state. Evan and his dad move to a small town in Minnesota on a lake. When he moves, Evan begins therapy for what happened to him. But that therapy can only do so much. It doesn’t remove the overwhelming fear he has of showers. It doesn’t remove the fear he has of establishing a new life.

And even if his therapist insists he needs to make more human connections, convincing himself to do that is not a prospect Evan looks forward to. But he does follow through on one of the therapists suggested exercises, which was to write letters to someone as a means of practicing how to open up and express himself. Those letters he writes are all to Collette — though he won’t send them, it’s a pretty significant choice of a person to whom he chooses to open himself to.

Up until the point when Evan had been a victim of violence, Evan had seen people and things in his life as impermanent. As disposable. That’s why he didn’t get invested in relationships with girls. He simply slept with them when he wanted to. A significant part of this is, of course, because his own father and he moved from place to place. It’s also because his mother’s dead and gone. There’s never been a solid basis for establishing connection and meaning for Evan, and after the incident in the shower, he sees this as even more of a truth.

Evan, too, becomes an object in that moment, rather than a person.

Of course, it would be a really boring story if the entire plot happened in chapter one and Evan put off doing anything to help himself after. Because as much as he learns a lesson almost immediately, there’s a lot more story to be told. Slowly, Evan begins to get to know some of the other kids at the lake, and all of them are partaking in their “last summer” as teens. It’s a chance for them to try the things they never did and to experience life in a way that they don’t think they’ll ever get to again. For these kids, the biggest choice is to practice “non-monogamy” (a phrase which becomes really funny with one of the characters). Evan can be down with this, but it is from a distance.

Enter Baker.

Baker is the first girl who approaches Evan in any meaningful way when he’s resettling in Minnesota. She’s curious about his late-night trips to the lake. He begins opening up to her, little by little, in a way that he’s never opened up to anyone before. In fact, he finds himself sort of falling for her. But again, it’s from a distance. He worries about consequence, even as he begins to hear her story and what it is that she has in her trunk for baggage. She kisses him, and it’s at that point he really begins to worry. Because as much as the kids have said they’re not practicing monogamy this summer, Evan fears that Baker’s boyfriend might not be into the relationship he’s developing with her.

Then they come close to having sex. Baker is the lady in control of their relationship in this moment, and it’s in this scene where Baker becomes my favorite character in the entire story. She’s not a game-player, either. In many ways, she’s a lot like Evan. When he comes to realize that she has the upper hand of power in their relationship, he also realizes how important developing a real relationship with another person is.

And thus, sort of discovers the ties between sex and violence. Both can turn people into objects and both can become means of figuring out that people are just that: people.

Sex & Violence has a lot going on in it besides this. The relationship between Baker and Evan isn’t necessarily the one that means the most to Evan, but it’s an important one in his progression and in his healing process. In fact, there will be more relationships for Evan, and he may in fact find a girl he can develop strong emotional ties to. Moreover, Evan discovers during this summer and subsequent school year that there’s a lot of baggage in his own family that he needs to unpack. It is through learning that other people have their own stories and dirt and crap within them that Evan understands how important those things he carries are what can help him establish something meaningful with other people. That he can’t outrun his own history, but he can instead let it be what it is and use it as necessary in understanding his choices.

As readers, we get this long before Evan does, thanks to his letters to Collette. But Evan doesn’t see it until the very final letter — perhaps the letter that is the most important one in the book and to his story. The circle finally makes sense (this is another little bit in the book, which I haven’t touched on and won’t touch on, but the circle is symbolic and comes together in the end).

Evan is a really complicated and layered character. He’s a teen boy through and through, and the way he approaches his relationships — both those prior to and following the shower attack — ring true. It’s uncomfortable at times to hear his thought process but it’s also true to character. Though the title itself will grab reader attention for sure, there is very little on-page sex and the on-page violence blacks out before become gratuitous. Much discussion of each happens, but in no way will there be anything sexy or bloody that sticks with the reader. Rather, what sticks with the reader is the complexity of either and of both, rendered through Evan and the relationships he does pursue and those which, well, he doesn’t.

There’s a lot to think about in Mesrobian’s book about redemption, as well. Does Evan ever become a character who is healed or better? At what rate is it believable that he can change as a person, and at what rate do we as readers forgive him? I wondered, too, about whether his family backstory aided in the way he understands himself and thus is a means for us as readers to better understand and forgive him, too. In many ways, it’s hugely positive that Evan isn’t healed immediately and that he makes some of the same mistakes he made prior to his being beaten up — even though he’s nervous to pursue sex for sex’s sake after, he doesn’t completely avoid it, either.

None of these questions are a knock on the book. In many ways, they’re what makes the book so memorable for me. I walked away with more questions about character than I did answers. And I also wondered a lot about whether this story would be any different had it been Baker’s story, rather than Evan’s. Would the take aways or perceptions of other characters and readers be different if a girl had been in Evan’s place? Because Evan’s not portrayed as a player here. He’s portrayed as a teen boy who happens to like sex. We accept that at that level. Would the same be true for a girl in that position? Or would more backstory be required or demanded?

The writing in this book is good, though I found at times the pacing wasn’t entirely consistent. At times it dragged a bit — particularly in the middle — and I thought that the ending came about a little bit quickly, particularly when it came to Evan’s new relationship and learning about his girlfriend’s backstory. I wanted to know more because she, too, had a lot of baggage and I wanted to know about how that interplayed with his own. It doesn’t matter in the context of the story (and arguably, it’s better not to know because that’s part of the point, but it left me curious anyway).

Sex & Violence is one to hand off to your fans of contemporary YA books that tackle messy subjects without fear. Evan has a great voice, and the writing — despite tackling a wealth of really hefty subjects — is at times really funny. Because as much as what’s happening is serious, Evan is a teen boy. He doesn’t take it all seriously all the time. He makes jokes. And some of the stuff he does is ridiculous, even if it’s a byproduct of the violence he experienced. He bathes in the lake! He won’t take a shower, even in a safely locked bathroom, but he’ll go take a swim in he lake late at night. It’s strangely funny. I don’t like laying books into categories of “for boys” or “for girls,” but I do think there is a particularly strong appeal in this one for guy readers who feel like contemporary YA is not for them. They’ll see themselves in Evan, even if they have never been in Evan’s place.

I do think this book has the potential to anger readers, particularly adults, who don’t think it’s “realistic.” But I think they’ll be overlooking the fact that teen boys think about these things, both in serious and less-than-serious ways, and they’ll overlook the fact that teen boys are . . . teen boys. While I don’t think this is a perfect read alike to Andrew Smith’s Winger, I think there are some interesting parallels, particularly when it comes to voice and writing and the relationships that develop between teen boys and girls (romantic and not-so romantic), that readers who enjoyed Smith’s novel may want to give Mesrobian’s debut a shot as well.

Sex & Violence is technically available October 1, but my library already has a finished copy ready and in circulation. So it’s also available now kind of. Review copy received from the publisher.