Lake Union Publishing
Featuring: Mitzy Evans; Gabriel Gulbranson; Ru Evans
272 pages ISBN: 1662504411 EAN: 9781662504419 Kindle: B0C9R5SHFJ Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
Here’s an unusual YA book which features Ru Evans, who graduated high school early and is about to start college at thirteen years old. Her mom Mitzy insists she must board at a home off campus and not in the dorms with adult students. Money is scarce, but somehow they’ll manage. LIFE, LOSS, AND PUFFINS seems more like a title for a memoir by an adult… except maybe for the puffins. That sums up Ru; twenty and thirteen.
The California family Ru joins consists of seventeen-year-old Gabriel and his mom, Mrs. Gulbranson, Ru’s chaperone for the semester. Gabriel is non-binary and not very talkative with strangers, but Ru chats to him because she’s always bored. And he’s nice. Then the loss part of the title happens, and in a rebound, the two young people decide to take off on a clandestine road trip. I was saying no, no, bad idea! While they’re behaving like siblings, they are not related and the disparity in age could cause Gabriel real problems. I hope any actual YA readers keep reading to the end of the book to see that consequences have to be faced.
Ru, our narrator, has few relatives – her mom and an aunt in Kentucky who doesn’t get along with her. She has no friends and has kicked the dust of school off her heels. At college, she only gets to know the lecturers, and nobody at all makes an effort to include her – except the administration, who parade her at a cocktail party for donors. Having recently been to college I am pretty sure the Students’ Union would be doing more to get Ru comfortable and involved in extracurricular activities, but she’s not used to that kind of help.
The road trip involves dark skies stargazing and the aurora borealis. The journey also involves working for a living, long drives, making friends, and lying to people. I found it hard to believe that nobody asks for proof of age, but as the kids aren’t trying to buy alcohol, they seem to get away with it. This edgy novel is a great read, but it would not have taken much to go wrong before the youngsters came to grave harm.
LIFE, LOSS, AND PUFFINS by Catherine Ryan Hyde examines a misfit – the intellectually gifted girl – and asks what society should be doing for her to help her have fun, grow into a rounded person, and make friends. Catherine Ryan Hyde, a prolific author, has previously written a similarly themed book, Allie And Bea, about a widow and a misfit teenager who go on a road trip along the Pacific coast. She also wrote Pay It Forward, which was filmed, about a child’s good idea which spread, to make a better society. Maybe she thinks we should give simple ideas by bright kids more attention.
An exhilarating and emotional novel about grief, hope, friendship, and taking life one beautiful and spontaneous day at a time by New York Times bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde.
Freakishly smart. That’s the unwelcome box Ru Evans is put into for life. After all, she taught herself Euclidean geometry at age seven, has an eidetic memory, and is about to enter college at thirteen years old.
Boarding at a house near campus 150 miles from home, Ru meets seventeen-year-old Gabriel, an outsider himself who, like Ru, has trouble making friends—until they form a fast sibling-like bond. Finding a relatable someone in the world to talk to is a first for both of them.
But when Ru’s mother dies and the threat of living with her miserable aunt looms, Ru hatches an escape. It’s an impulsive road trip that takes Ru and Gabriel from California to Canada, where Ru can fulfill her ultimate dream: to see Atlantic puffins in the glorious wild.
Mile by mile, Ru discovers the joy of friendship, found family, dark night skies, and the aurora borealis, and she basks in going from being a smart person to just a person. Though she knows they’ll be in trouble when they’re caught, for the short time they are navigating twist by twist of an unknown road, the freedom is liberating, and she is living for what feels like the first time.
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