Take a photo of a barcode or cover
popthebutterfly 's review for:
Tiny Infinities
by J. H. Diehl
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book through KidLitExchange. Thanks! All opinions are my own.
Rating: 4/5
Genre: MG Contemporary
Recommended Age: 14+ (divorce, grief, drugs, drug usage, abuse, mental illness, and slight obscure mentions of sex)
Pages: 352
Author Website
Amazon Link
Synopsis: When Alice's dad moves out, leaving her with her troubled mother, she does the only thing that feels right: she retreats to her family's old Renaissance tent in the backyard, determined to live there until her dad comes home. In an attempt to keep at least one part of her summer from changing, Alice focuses on her quest to swim freestyle fast enough to get on her swim team's record board. But summers contain multitudes, and soon Alice meets an odd new friend, Harriet, whose obsession with the school's science fair is equal only to her conviction that Alice's best stroke is backstroke, not freestyle. Most unexpected of all is an unusual babysitting charge, Piper, who is mute—until Alice hears her speak. A funny and honest middle-grade novel, this sharply observed depiction of family, friendship, and Alice's determination to prove herself—as a babysitter, as a friend, as a daughter, as a person—rings loud and true.
This is another book that will probably be one of my favorites of 2018, but it’s for a different reason. It’s a cute middle grade contemporary that talks about divorce and could be a huge help for kids in a similar situation. It’s funny, it’s charming, the characters are well developed, and the book is very well structured and developed.
However, I feel like there’s more to the story than what the young readers read. From my grown-up perspective it felt like there was a whole hidden world going on that the book hints about. The book deals with a lot of issues throughout the book but never resolves them in the end. I don’t normally do this, but because of my concern about the book and about younger readers reading the book I will talk about spoilers:
SPOILERS FROM HERE DOWN
The mother has an obvious dependence on her medication and it hints at it being oxy, which a lot of people get dependent on. The mother seems to exaggerate her injuries so she can continue using the medication. The mother leaves the child entirely on her own and stops caring for the house in general. The neighbor man is a very loud and boisterous character and while the young girl’s selective mutism isn’t ever fully explained the father seems to be the cause of it. Whenever he yells or lashes out at the family they seem to cower. In a couple of points during the book when the neighbor man has had a particularly volatile episode the family members aren’t seen in the book for a scene or two. The neighbor man makes a comment about one such disappearance as the wife and the children left without the neighbor man to her family in North Carolina. The oldest child of the neighbor man openly talks about an obscure mention to him being the product of a one night stand between his parents. The father of the main character seems to be the most competent adult, but he fails to intervene to help the main character. In my opinion if this was a real story CPS should have been called a long time ago on the family and it concerns me that at the end of the book the neighbor man apologized once but still had an eerie vibe to him, the mother was still dependent on drugs, and the family was fractured and left to deal with a dependent mother while the father lives elsewhere. Sure, he says he will come everyday to mow and make the children’s lunches, but he’s left three of his kids with an addict who has shown herself to be incapable of caring for her own children. This book really concerns me and really intrigues me and I’m not sure if this is a healthy book for a child to read or if it’s so obscure in these issues that it’s okay.
Verdict: I have feelings about this book.
Rating: 4/5
Genre: MG Contemporary
Recommended Age: 14+ (divorce, grief, drugs, drug usage, abuse, mental illness, and slight obscure mentions of sex)
Pages: 352
Author Website
Amazon Link
Synopsis: When Alice's dad moves out, leaving her with her troubled mother, she does the only thing that feels right: she retreats to her family's old Renaissance tent in the backyard, determined to live there until her dad comes home. In an attempt to keep at least one part of her summer from changing, Alice focuses on her quest to swim freestyle fast enough to get on her swim team's record board. But summers contain multitudes, and soon Alice meets an odd new friend, Harriet, whose obsession with the school's science fair is equal only to her conviction that Alice's best stroke is backstroke, not freestyle. Most unexpected of all is an unusual babysitting charge, Piper, who is mute—until Alice hears her speak. A funny and honest middle-grade novel, this sharply observed depiction of family, friendship, and Alice's determination to prove herself—as a babysitter, as a friend, as a daughter, as a person—rings loud and true.
This is another book that will probably be one of my favorites of 2018, but it’s for a different reason. It’s a cute middle grade contemporary that talks about divorce and could be a huge help for kids in a similar situation. It’s funny, it’s charming, the characters are well developed, and the book is very well structured and developed.
However, I feel like there’s more to the story than what the young readers read. From my grown-up perspective it felt like there was a whole hidden world going on that the book hints about. The book deals with a lot of issues throughout the book but never resolves them in the end. I don’t normally do this, but because of my concern about the book and about younger readers reading the book I will talk about spoilers:
SPOILERS FROM HERE DOWN
The mother has an obvious dependence on her medication and it hints at it being oxy, which a lot of people get dependent on. The mother seems to exaggerate her injuries so she can continue using the medication. The mother leaves the child entirely on her own and stops caring for the house in general. The neighbor man is a very loud and boisterous character and while the young girl’s selective mutism isn’t ever fully explained the father seems to be the cause of it. Whenever he yells or lashes out at the family they seem to cower. In a couple of points during the book when the neighbor man has had a particularly volatile episode the family members aren’t seen in the book for a scene or two. The neighbor man makes a comment about one such disappearance as the wife and the children left without the neighbor man to her family in North Carolina. The oldest child of the neighbor man openly talks about an obscure mention to him being the product of a one night stand between his parents. The father of the main character seems to be the most competent adult, but he fails to intervene to help the main character. In my opinion if this was a real story CPS should have been called a long time ago on the family and it concerns me that at the end of the book the neighbor man apologized once but still had an eerie vibe to him, the mother was still dependent on drugs, and the family was fractured and left to deal with a dependent mother while the father lives elsewhere. Sure, he says he will come everyday to mow and make the children’s lunches, but he’s left three of his kids with an addict who has shown herself to be incapable of caring for her own children. This book really concerns me and really intrigues me and I’m not sure if this is a healthy book for a child to read or if it’s so obscure in these issues that it’s okay.
Verdict: I have feelings about this book.