3.65 out of 4 stars.
How your own secret to keep at 17 somehow affects your life’s relationships down the line.
High school is an absolute miserable experience for most people but if you add a recent loss of your mother it makes it down right impossible to endure. This is what Nadia Turner is going through during her senior year and the small age of only 17. She has to find a way to wrap her head around the idea of her closest family member committing suicide without a note or any inkling of what went wrong. Dazed and confused is an understatement. In her confusion she finds love and comfort within the small town’s son of a Pastor. His name is Luke Sheppard and he is a few years older at 21 but not the much wiser. It takes only a few months for him to get Nadia pregnant and them to decide they need to abort the baby. Not an ideal start to a young romance. A secret must be kept that this event occurred because the Pastor is the one responsible for the 600 dollar fee at the clinic. Not necessarily part of his moral compass. The two are unable to push forward as a couple and they break up while going their separate ways. However, the question remains, what would of happen if “baby” remained and life took a different course?
The voice throughout the book is comforting yet engaging. I had no struggle at all to keep turning the page because it felt like an easy cup of tea to be in this world. Every female can identify to a young friendship that is a balance between enjoyment and desperate need for companionship. Nadia and her friend, Aubrey, hold on to one another throughout the years for necessity despite it having bumps. The writing style feels relevant and not someone clueless trying to connect. Although, Bennett can be a little unnecessarily graphic at times I believe it is to show how these girls are trying to act braver than they are and are put in situations that are dangerous but they are clueless.
All in all a very enjoyable and modern tale that I feel Brit Bennett should be proud of. I am looking forward to reading more of her works come out because she definitely set the scene for a intelligent writer.