Book Info:
Publisher: HMH Books
Release Date: Feb 23, 2021
Genre: YA Fiction
Book Info:
Before she kissed one of the Cohen boys, seventeen-year-old Jessi Rumfield knew what it was like to have a family—even if, technically, that family didn’t belong to her. She’d spent her childhood in the house next door, challenging Rowan Cohen to tennis matches while his older brother, Luke, studied in the background and Mel watched over the three like the mother Jessi always wished she had.
But then everything changed. It’s been almost a year since Jessi last visited the Cohen house. Rowan is gone. Mel is in remission and Luke hates Jessi for the role she played in breaking his family apart. Now Jessi spends her days at a dead-end summer job avoiding her real mother, who suddenly wants to play a role in Jessi's life after being absent for so long. But when Luke comes home from college, it's hard to ignore the past. And when he asks Jessi to pretend to be his girlfriend for the final months of Mel’s life, Jessi finds herself drawn back into the world of the Cohens. Everything’s changed, but Jessi can’t help wanting to be a Cohen, even if it means playing pretend for one final summer.
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Author Info:
Sarah Everett is the author of No One Here is Lonely and Everyone We've Been. She remembers growing up in enchanted forests, on desert islands, and inside a magical wardrobe. She would only ever erase her memory of past karaoke performances and certain fashion choices. She lives in Alberta, Canada.
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Review
I received an advance copy of this book from Publishers on behalf of Hear Our Voices Blog Tours. All thoughts in this review are my own.
After the death of her best friend, the loss of her boyfriend, waiting to lose the woman who's always acted as a mother to her, and struggling with the "return" of her actual mother who's spend the last 18 years in bed battling depression, Jessi moves through the world as a shell of a person filling ever hour of her day to keep the darkness at bay.
Jessi and Rowan Cohen were best friends for 10 years. Older brother Luke Cohen and Jessie spent a few beautiful months as more than friends, finally, but all of that died the night Ro did. Mel Cohen had always been the mom Jessi craved but as she dies slowly from cancer, Jessi, Ro, and Luke begin to fall apart as well.
A year after Ro's death and the end of Luke and Jessi, Luke reappears out of nowhere, insisting that he and Jessi pretend to be dating again, for Mel's sake, Jessi can't say no, she;d no anything for Mel and has never forgiven herself for hurting Luke. As Jessi and Luke walk the tight rope between pretend and the flame that never actually burned out, Jessi is forced to deal with the gradual loss of Mel, her need for Luke but aversion to close relationships, her parents who pretend as if the last eighteen years never happened, and what she did to Ro.
I feel like I traveled with Jessi on this journey. Moving between Then and Now was so fantastically jarring because, although Jessi's life was never "perfect" we were able to see what she "had" with the Cohen's, and what her life turned into when she lost them. Having recently had my own family loss this summer, the darkness of it can act as an accelerate in a world that's tough and unforgiving in the best of circumstances (let alone during Covid and this circus of an election season).
I love that we are beginning to see more books that tell stories of black suburban families. While Jessi's story isn't exactly exploding with joy, the addition of books like Some Other Now with The Hate You Give, I Am Alfonso Jones, and Dear Martin begins to show the world that there is more than one black narrative. While the history of African American's begins with some of the most oppressive moments in American history, we are more than oppressed people. We will always walk through the world with dark skin, and there will always be some that hate us for it, but we're allowed friendships, love, family. We're allowed to play tennis, go camping, bake cupcakes, and live our lives with all the joy we can carve out of this world.
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