curlygeek04's reviews
342 reviews

 

LaBarbera is a psychotherapist and professor, and this is her first published novel about growing up and overcoming trauma. It was a thoughtful book, which I appreciated since I’m very interested in psychology, although I did struggle with some aspects of it. 

Kai is a young girl when the story begins; she describes herself as fearless, particularly compared to her sensitive and artistic twin brother Kade. As the kids get older, Kade becomes depressed, and Kai struggles to take care of her mother, her brother and their friends. 

LaBarbera tells Kai’s story slowly, and very much through the lens of Kai as she grows and matures. The characters experience things many of us can identify with, particularly worrying about how family patterns like violence and abuse may repeat themselves, how we know when a relationship is good for us or is holding us back, and how we recover from difficult times and mistakes we’ve made. I’ll admit that I didn’t like Kai a lot of the time, and I wasn’t sure how much that was intentional on the part of the author, or whether I just found her abrasive.  Certainly Kai goes through difficult times and those realistically impact her personality. Still, she has quite a temper and often acts inappropriately, initiating huge arguments without any rational basis.

I did find her infatuation with Josh disturbing and found him sympathetic most of the time. His reactions to her felt very understandable. It’s hard for me to relate to the idea that you can fall in love with someone at 7 years old and still be in love with them as an adult. But I suppose it happens, and it sets up an interesting dilemma in the book. Is Kai’s love for Josh immature, and is it more about maintaining a connection to her childhood, than truly loving someone for who they are as an adult?  

There is a lot of sex in this book, which is fine with me, but it’s quite explicit and I think some readers will be surprised by that. Sex is of course very psychological, and I appreciated that the author explored that, particularly when it’s about power and powerlessness, or love and joy, or just distracting oneself from pain. I just think there are times the level of detail seemed a little excessive for the tone of the book. 

I liked that there were no villains, just people trying to overcome their limitations. The parents felt very real to me, although just as real were the terrible impacts on their children. I also appreciated the conclusion of the book, which I won’t discuss here. Altogether, this was a thoughtful read and one that explores compelling issues. Note: I received an advanced review copy of this novel from publicist Books Forward. It’s published by Buckberg Mountain Books on June 11, 2024.