Jamie and Elaine are best friends, but they don’t live near each other anymore. Most of their communication is via letter or periodic phone call; it’s through this that Jamie learns her best friend believes her boyfriend truly loves her. Elaine and he are ready for the next step. Jamie’s skeptical, especially given that this is the time when girls who found themselves pregnant were not only looked upon as problems, but they were often sent away to temporary homes until they were forced to give up their babies and then returned home. Everyone knew who was “in trouble” during these times. When Elaine finds herself in trouble, as much as Jamie’s reluctant to help, she does what she can through her family connections to try to solve the problem.

Here’s the ringer, though: Jamie is also in trouble. But Jamie finds herself that way not because she’s in love with a boy, but because of something out of her control. Suddenly, she feels like she has no where to turn, and she’s definitely not ready to have a baby — nor is she ready to be sent away.

In Trouble had immense potential, but for me, this book fell flat. The setting, during the late 1950s/early 1960s amid the scandals of McCarthyism, was full of fodder — this was a time in history when so much political turmoil spilled right into social issues, and it was a time prior to the women’s liberation movement. Levine sets her story in a great time to tackle the issue of teen pregnancy. The problem is, though, that it’s never once believable. Perhaps the bigger issue is that this book felt like a teen problem novel of the 1950s and never once like a work of historical fiction that investigated the sharp dynamics of the time period.

Jamie and Elaine are flat characters in the story. I didn’t find myself buying their friendship, especially given that Elaine didn’t seem interested in having a strong relationship with Jamie. She just needed an out. For me, it felt like the dynamics of their friendship existed only as a means to push the plot forward. More than that, though, I found that Elaine’s situation served merely as a way for Jamie’s story to emerge. Jamie’s scared and confused when she learns of Elaine’s pregnancy, though she’s not entirely surprised, given that she knew Elaine and her boyfriend were having sex. She wants to help her, and she does. This in and of itself is not the problem; instead, the problem emerges when suddenly, we’re tossed into a foreign situation to both us and to Jamie, where she’s taken advantage of and finds herself pregnant. I found this scene entirely jarring and out of character with anything Jamie would do (and no, I’m not blaming the victim here). Part of this is because I don’t ever truly get to know Jamie. I only get to know her through her relationship with and beliefs about Elaine, and thus, when she finds herself in trouble, I have a hard time believing it. Elaine’s pregnancy seemed like a convenient manner in which to insert Jamie’s pregnancy and thus, a subplot on the issues surrounding pregnancy via rape.

The book lacked true character development, as both girls were made into who they were simply through what happened to them. This is where I felt the book fell into being a traditional problem novel rather than a work of historical fiction; had the characters been pushed further, more strongly fleshed, then I think the storyline could have really blossomed. I’d have really liked a stronger development, too, of the time period. Though we get it, given that we know what happens to girls who become pregnant and through the fact that Jamie’s father finds himself in trouble because of his association to McCarthy, I feel like a stronger flair to the time period could have also made the story fuller. I say this as an adult reader, but I think that many teen readers who pick this one up just won’t see the heft here because of the weak characters and the weak setting. There are so many books tackling teen pregnancy that given more depth to their stories, and a novel that approaches the topic and does so in a historical context needs to offer more of both to have it carry the weight it should for readers. The writing is just not there.

The biggest issue I had with the book, though, comes with a bit of a spoiler warning. During this era, girls didn’t quite have the freedom that Jamie and Elaine seem to have. By that I mean there is no way that abortion would have been such an easy choice as it is in the story. Moreover, it wasn’t as acceptable as the novel portrays it to be. I think had the writing been stronger and the characters more developed, perhaps this aspect of the plot wouldn’t have bothered me as much, but unfortunately, the weakness in writing spills into the weakness of the handling of big ethical dilemmas here, too. This is a short book — just over 200 pages — but I feel like 400 pages worth of material are covered. I struggled to get through them. Had it been written more strongly, had the story not felt like a problem novel, and had I found the characters in any way interesting, I could have devoted more time and interest in a longer book.

In Trouble will appeal to your readers who like stories set in the past, as well as those who are interested in this historical period. I handed it over to a teen who loves stories of teen pregnancy, as well. The challenge, though, is I think many will walk away disappointed because the story just isn’t quite there. It feels more preachy than absorbing and lacks a lot of the elements that take a good idea from simply an idea to a true story.

Review copy received from the published. In Trouble is available now.

Laurel’s life has two distinct halves: the before and the after. The before is where we’re dropped when we begin Castle’s story, and it’s a very short part of the story. Laurel and her family are on their way across town for dinner with a family they’ve been friends with for a while. That family’s son, David, had been friends with Laurel when they were younger, but as they grew up, they grew apart. Laurel became more reserved and driven toward attending the best college she could, while David became a bit of a wild, rebellious teen. It wasn’t that they hated each other. It was just that they were so different.

Those are the few things we get in Laurel’s beginning.

After dinner, Laurel decides she needs to go home and study for her exams, rather than join the families on a trip out for something sweet. David, too, decides not to go out and keeps to himself at home that evening. For both of them, the decision seems light, but the reality is, it’s the decision that saves their lives.

Jennifer Castle’s debut novel, The Beginning of After, explores what happens when someone loses everything they have. Laurel and David both lose their families in a car wreck that night, and it’s a car wreck that has no definite cause. David’s father is the lone survivor of the incident, but he is unconscious for the bulk of the story. The police and community have been pointing their fingers at him, suggesting that his drinking at dinner that evening may have been the fault for the accident, but the truth of the matter is, this aspect of the story doesn’t matter. Instead, we’re meant to focus on Laurel and David’s recovery and the way their worlds shift dramatically when they’re made to grow up very quickly.

What I appreciated about this book was that, despite being a story about two people dealing with tragedy, it is single voiced. We only hear from Laurel in the story, which means we’re given a one-sided perspective. Part of why this worked for me was that the book was very, very long for what it was. Had David had the opportunity to chime in, it would have gone on far longer than I would have given it time for. More than that, though, is that I felt Laurel had an interesting grieving process. She was upset, and she let us in on it. But the thing was, she wasn’t a big physical reactor to the situation; instead, much of her grieving came in the form of internal dialog. Sure, she cries, but she doesn’t break down over and over. Instead, she keeps going on. She doesn’t let herself drown in her misery from the beginning.

However, Laurel is far from a perfect character. Frankly, I found her kind of boring and a bit lopsided in her thinking. Where I understand that grief is an all-consuming emotion, I felt like a lot of Laurel’s actions and thoughts weren’t necessary nor were they necessarily fluid. In one scene, she talks about loving her best friend’s home because it reminded her of what catalogs looked like: things were clean and new, and the furniture and dishes all went together. She says in the same breath that she dislikes that her house looks like a collection of mismatched items and a warehouse to eclectia. A few chapters later, Laurel mourns losing her mother and her mother’s sense of style. She does the flip of what she’d reminisced about before, suggesting that she loves nothing more than the strange style going on at home. While it’s believable to mourn for the loss of her mother via her mother’s strange style, it also seems like a strange comment earlier to say she hated it and preferred (that’s the key word) her friend’s home styling. These little details added up to a lot of inconsistencies when it came to character and to voice in Laurel, which made her lopsided and kind of boring to me. I never got to know who she was.

Part of the problem in getting to know her, I think, came from the fact that this book takes off in action quickly. We only see her in the “before” at dinner. We don’t know really how she interacts with other people, nor do we know exactly how she felt about her family before they were gone. Instead, we’re only given true insight in the after, which is a single sided view of things. When I think about books that deal with a heavy topic like Castle’s, I can’t help but compare to Gayle Forman’s stunning If I Stay. We’re given insight into the before and into the after with enough fluidity that we can distinguish true feeling from Mia. Here, we have to buy Laurel in her grief. We can only buy Laurel in her grief.

Because of this, I never was able to believe in the relationship that happens between Laurel and David throughout the novel. While they’re grieving simultaneously – and David has the added weight of a comatose father who may have been responsible for the entire mess – they’re also developing a strange relationship that is far from a romance and far from a friendship. Laurel becomes a sort of caretaker for the things David is too inept to deal with (his dog, specifically) and then near the end of the book, they decide to come close in partaking in the now cliché grief sex. David was, to put it bluntly, an asshole throughout the entire book, and I couldn’t wrap my head around why Laurel would find this something worth pursuing (the sex, not the relationship as a whole). The thing that jarred me about it was that it was seemingly out of nowhere. For such a hefty book, I really expected more of a fleshed out relationship between the two of them that would warrant that sort of action; moreover, I hoped for consistency in Laurel’s development as a character, as that, too, would had aided in making this a potentially powerful scene, rather than one that felt cliché.

Of all the characters in the book, I found Masher, the dog, to be the most interesting. He’s had a traumatic life being shipped between homes, and I couldn’t help but feel bad for how poorly he was treated throughout. I wanted to like Laurel and I wanted to care about her growth and movement in the after, I couldn’t. It felt like she wore gauze over herself, and she made it hard for me to get to know her. David, as I said, isn’t given a whole lot of page time, and in the time he is given, he doesn’t make himself out to be the kind of character worth investing much into. I was expecting to experience a wealth of emotions reading this novel, as it has the set up to give me a ride, but it didn’t.

This isn’t an easy book to read, and it requires quite an investment, as it’s probably about 200 pages longer than it needs to be. I think a lot of the character development and story arc could have been tightened through shortening the book. There were too many opportunities for subplots and inconsistencies to pop up, and it was when I found those moments that I found myself liking the characters and story less.

I think fans of contemporary lit will be split on this one, and I think the split will come in how widely they’ve read in the genre. Those who have read books like Forman’s may find this a weak entry into the field, but those who have enjoyed tragedy via Lurlene McDaniel may find this a worthwhile read alike. I think those who enjoy Elizabeth Scott’s heavier books will appreciate The Beginning of After, as well as those who like Sarah Dessen.

Review copy received from the publisher. The Beginning of After will be available September 6.