Bean, whose real name is Pearl, doesn’t have a father. At the start of the book, we meet her and best friend Henry (also without a father) as they indulge in their favorite daytime tv soaps. We learn pretty quickly, too, that Bean lives with her mother, who she doesn’t like, and she lives with her grandfather Gus. Although she’s not entirely upfront about her feelings toward her grandfather, we know she likes him because she resents her mother for being so mean spirited toward him. Clearly something happened in the past between her mother and grandfather that caused such split feelings, but we aren’t privy to it. At least, not before her grandfather dies.

After Gus’s death, secrets begun unraveling, as we learn why it is that Bean’s mother is spending so much time with her friend Claire, acting more like teenagers than parents. Bean always thought this behavior came because her mother had her when she was only a teenager, but as her mother and Claire become more and more irresponsible adults, Bean starts to challenge her mother. And then, everything comes together for Bean, as she discovers her mother’s feelings toward Gus may have been justified and her own birth may have been out of spite toward him.

Pearl is a family drama through and through. Although it’s a shorter book, I found the pacing to be slower, and I found both Bean and Henry to be less-than-exciting characters. The reason for this, I think, is that this book felt much less like a book about Bean and her uncovering of the family secrets and much more a book about Bean’s mother’s problems. Bean’s mother is — here’s your spoiler warning — a lesbian, and her entire hatred toward Gus comes from his walking in on her and Claire making out many years in the past. Gus had been kind to Bean because she was the result of her mother’s poor choices and attempts to change who she was in order to make Gus happy.

Where there was much opportunity to make this a story about Bean, I didn’t think it was quite fulfilled. I found myself really aching for her and aching for Henry, as both of these characters were fatherless and that played into a lot of the baggage they carried individually and together. Both of them came from eerily similar backgrounds with their fathers, actually; both had been abandoned and left to be raised by their mothers. In neither case, though, were the characters angry or frustrated with their lot in this. Rather, Bean spilled her feelings of hurt and rage toward her mother through and through, and as a reader, I couldn’t quite buy that she would never once feel that sort of anger toward the father who left her. Sure, it was easy for anger to manifest toward the person she sees everyday and the person who made her feel like she was unwanted, but that same feeling of abandonment was one she should have voiced toward her father a little more. Bean really served more as a way for her mother to tell her story. Bean lacked for me voice and agency, and the story was rife with opportunity for her to develop both.

There were a series of coincidences that happened about 3/4 of the way through the book that had me fearful this book would go down an unnecessarily melodramatic road, but fortunately, Knowles didn’t take the story that way. Instead, she let Henry and Bean both have their family struggles. I haven’t talked much about Henry because, as much as he’s a huge part of Bean’s life, and as much as we get to know about his fatherless situation and his mother’s hermit-like existence (cured when Bean’s mom and Claire invite her out for a girls’ day at the mall in the wake of Gus’s death), we really don’t get to know him well. He loves daytime soaps and he likes spending time with Bean, but otherwise, he’s flat. I would have loved more from him — I think this was the kind of story that could have been told from his perspective or had his voice thrown in periodically, as he could have helped anchor this story back to Bean, rather than her mother.

Despite all of the things that didn’t work for me in the story, there was one element that really did work for me, and that was the use of Bean’s mom’s journal in the story. Because Bean is the vessel for the story, we get everything through her perspective. When her mother gives Bean her journal though, we’re given her mother’s voice first hand. She has the chance to speak for herself, and it’s here — albeit too late — that we see Bean finally putting the pieces together and developing a voice for herself.

Even though this book wasn’t my favorite, I definitely see the readership it appeals to. Those who have liked Knowles’s other works will certainly want to check this one out, as will those who like more adult-flavored books. Those teens who read and enjoy family dramas or more contemporary classics, will find a lot to appreciate in this story.

I purchased my own copy of this book. Pearl is available now.