Never That Far by Carol Lynch Williams HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY!

Libby Lochewood is twelve years old in 1967 when her grampa dies of a heart attack. She is devastated at losing her best friend. Now that Grampa's passed on, it's just her and her father, and he is so overcome by grief that he can barely get out of bed in the morning.

The night of the funeral, though, Grampa's spirit appears in Libby's bedroom and tells her three important things: first, that she isn't alone or forgotten--"The dead ain't never that far from the living," he says; second, that she has "the Sight"--the ability to see family members who have died; and three, that there is something special just for her in the lake. Something that could help her and her father--if she can find it. He kisses Libby on the cheek and vanishes in a soft glow of light and color.

Libby begins her search along with her friends Bobby and Martha, but it's hard to know if they've found what Grampa wanted her to find since they don't really know what it is. As Libby's father falls deeper and deeper into depression, Libby and Grampa work together on a plan to help her father believe that their loved ones who have died are much closer than he thinks. But it will take all of Libby's courage and her gift of Sight to convince her father and help him believe that the dead are never truly gone.

Never That Far is set in the lush, rural landscape of southern Florida and is a middle-grade novel about friendship, hope, and the power of family love.

  Opening line:
""What you doing, girl?" Daddy said when the burying was done.

Libby is going through a hard time. Her very best friend, her grampa, just died and her daddy isn't paying any attention to her. He's caught up in his own sorrows that stem back before this new death.
That night, her grampa's spirit visits her to comfort her and tell her a few important things. The most important: "The dead ain't never that far...". He also tells her there is a treasure out at the lake on their property. Libby's adventures are about to begin with the help of her new friend Bobby. She finds peace and love and something very, very special, more special than gold bouillon.
If there is a child or parent going through the loss of a loved one, this story is a great reminder that our loved ones are always close, even if we don't see them

NEVER THAT FAR is a story of love, family and most importantly, finding a soft spot to land surrounded by a loving family, both past and present.


Thanks to netgalley and Shadow Mountain for the early read.

Glimpse by Carol Lynch Williams

In one moment it is over. In one moment it is gone. The morning grows thin, grey and our lives- how they were- have vanished. Our lives have changed when I walk in on Lizzie my sister holding a shotgun. Twelve year old girl Hope's life is turned upside down when her older sister Lizzie becomes an elective mute and is institutionalized after trying to kill herself. Ever since their dad died Hope and Lizzie have relied on each other from a young age. Their mother is a reluctant and unreliable parent at best, who turns tricks to support the family. Throughout the course of this lyrical and heartbreaking narrative readers and Hope discover that the mother is prostituting Lizzie and it’s up to Hope to bring the truth to light to save her sister. With raw and haunting writing reminiscent of Ellen Hopkins and Elizabeth Scott, Carol Lynch Williams is a promising new YA voice.

This story was intriguing and devastating. I wanted to choke the mother, be friends with the girls and build them up, thank the kind neighbor and go to the police.
Written a lyrical narrative, the story is from Hope's point of view. Hope and Lizzie are not only sisters, they are best friends, taking care of each other since they were six and seven. Their daddy was killed in a motorcycle accident and their mom can't hold a job so she turns tricks to support her family.
It's hard to put the book down even when the story hurt my heart.

Rating: Adult
L: swearing sprinkled throughout
V: mean and absentee parent
S: prostitution


25% test (p. 121):

"We move to the side of the road,
the whole world gray
like Florida becomes
in a good rain.

Mari pulls out a
sanitary napkin.

Put that away,
I say, looking
toward the road
Somebody might see it.

You want me to go deaf?
she says.

She plucks the filling from a
couple of pads
and puts a wad in each ear.

I'm ready now, let's go.
Mari motions with her chin
and I can just see
cotton coming from her head
like her stuffing has come loose."

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated polygamous community without questioning her father’s three wives and her twenty brothers and sisters. Or at least without questioning them much—if you don’t count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her. But when the Prophet decrees that Kyra must marry her 60-year-old uncle—who already has six wives—Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family.

Argh! I had a hard time with the chauvinistic men in the community where Kyra spent 13 years! And Ms. Williams makes sure I feel that way so because of this aspect, the book is written well.
The Chosen One is a quick read and lingering affect (I talked about the story for two days). I liked the voice and writing in this book but I had a hard time with the subject. Not the subject, really, but the amazingly sexist cult the 13 year-old lived in with her mother and dozens of siblings. The author showed all the leaders (all men) in the polygamist group as mean, greedy,abusive and prideful. It was almost 'in your face' through the whole book and left me mentally tired.