There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.Įveryone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago-except Pippa Fitz-Amobi. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.Īutumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart their mothers are still best friends. Ultimately, the uneven alternating storylines fail to allow either the characters or their friendship to fully develop. Aaron’s narrative, however, with his paralyzing grief and self-recriminations about his role in a friend’s death, provides a plausible explanation of why he would agree to his role in Hannah’s rather outlandish deception. Glossing over the harsh realities of teen pregnancy and parenthood at times invalidates the novel’s authenticity. It’s possible that Hannah’s lack of concern about her post-pregnancy future reflects her immaturity, but it also allows readers to ignore the very difficult situations that Hannah and her family will face after the baby is born. Instead, she almost exclusively considers her immediate situation: her fears about revealing that a drunken, consensual one-night stand with someone she should not have slept with resulted in her pregnancy and her hopes that he will eventually embrace her decision to keep the baby (an unlikely scenario). Readers may expect Hannah’s narrative to focus on her fears about becoming a mother when she is still emotionally and financially dependent on her own parents. Alternating narratives explore the private motivations of two teens brought together by crisis and the pair’s developing friendship.įifteen, pregnant and desperate to avoid revealing the father’s identity, Hannah is eager to allow Aaron, the new guy at school, to pose as the baby’s daddy.

Trouble by non pratt