Grist

Sixteen year old Charlie (Charlena, aka Char, aka Charlie-girl) lives with her dad, Mike, and a few scattered memories of the mother who died of cancer when Charlie was four. Charlie has always wanted to be a writer, but as the summer after Junior Year approaches, she's in a major funk. Her dad is dating a woman she can't relate to, and her best friend Sam, who she is secretly in love with, has moved to Australia for a year with his family. Sam has also started mentioning someone named Elizabeth in his emails, and Charlie is determinedly freezing him out. All in all, Charlie's creative juices are flat out dried up, and neither Mike now Charlie's writing teacher can talk her out of it. What Charlie needs is a change of scenery. When her grandmother invites her to spend the summer up on Lake Ringrose, where her mom grew up, she accepts, and finds her life changed forever. She meets the charismatic and dangerous Kerry, who has troubles of his own. Despite her best efforts, she succumbs to his charm. And that's where things get really complicated, and downright emotionally devastating. But that, Charlie's writing teacher tells her, is all grist for writing stories. I enjoyed the characterization in Grist. Charlie feels real to me, and I empathize with her pain. I like Kerry a lot, too. He has had some tough breaks, but he's doing the best that he can. And despite hellacious parenting, he knows where he wants to be in the world. Pretty impressive at eighteen. Although absent for much of the text, Charlie's dad, Mike, is also a strong character. He has his flaws, but his love for and support of his daughter are boundless. As for the plot, I must admit that I saw where things were going fairly early on (though I'm not sure it would have been obvious to a less suspicious mind). And I found some of the passages about Charlie's writer's block a bit tutorial-ish (here are the important things about being a writer, etc.). Despite these points, I read on eagerly, because I cared about what was going to happen to Charlie. And at the end, I wanted more. I wanted to know how Charlie's was going to continue to relate to both Sam and Kerry, and whether a certain parent and child would ever reconcile. I wanted to know how next year's boat race on Lake Ringrose was going to turn out. In short, I didn't want it to end. And that's the best endorsement I can give you. This book review was originally published on my blog, Jen Robinson's Book Page, on January 11, 2006.