ALA Booklist (Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2007)

Being 13 is tough, but Evyn's life is further complicated by her father's marriage to a woman with six children and an announcement that another child is on the way. Evyn must also adjust to a new all-girls school, where "girls in headbands" run the show. Evyn's well-meaning father, stoic brother, and stepsiblings are great characters, especially her bickering older sisters; Ajax (nicknamed Cleanser Boy); and sexy, college-age Linus. When Evyn manages to find alone time in her crazy house, she imagines conversations with her dead mother, from whom she asks advice. Her mother tells her that she should let bad things bounce off her t knowing what she needs to do and doing it are very different things. Friend gives Evyn an authentic teen voice and emotions, at the same time providing a satisfying blend of humor and empathy that will strike a particular chord with readers coping with their own friendship and blended-family troubles.

Horn Book (Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2008)

Thirteen-year-old Evyn has a difficult time adjusting after her father remarries and moves the family from Maine to Boston. Feeling like she's losing her father, Evyn finds comfort in imagined conversations with her dead mother. School is a major source of her anxiety, but ultimately the story is about how a family grows. Evyn's insecurities will resonate with readers.

Kirkus Reviews

Since childhood, 13-year-old Evyn Linney has been wishing for one thing: a mother. However, when her widowed father announces that he's remarrying and they're relocating from Maine to Boston, Evyn isn't thrilled, especially when she pieces together that moving in with her new mother, Eleni Gartos, means living with six new siblings. Although this text features the typical predictable horrors of moving, including leaving behind a best friend and the awkwardness of fitting in at a new school, the realistic and genuinely humorous details of the newly formed Linney-Gartos family sets this text apart. Also providing a slightly different angle is Evyn's "relationship" with her deceased birthmother, Stella, who visits her with motherly advice, including the suggestion that Evyn simply let trouble "bounce" off her. These supernatural conversations are at first difficult to swallow, but they reveal much about Evyn, especially as she explores her deeper reasons for wanting to reject her new family. Earnest and funny. (Fiction. YA)

School Library Journal

Gr 6-8-At her 13th-birthday dinner, Evyn's hippie father, Birdie, drops a bomb. He is going to marry Eleni Gartos, a college professor with six children, and Evyn and her 15-year-old brother will be leaving their home in Maine and moving to Boston with him. Evyn feels that her world has collapsed, while Mackey just asks to have two desserts. Feeling alone, the girl begins a dialogue with her dead mother as she imagines her. Friend captures the emotions and angst of a teen on the brink of womanhood thrust into a large, vocal stepfamily while having to share her father with a woman she hardly knows and a house full of stepsiblings. Throughout her ups and downs, Birdie's love remains constant, her stepsiblings are accepting, and her brother is transforming himself from a nerdy computer geek into a fledgling thespian. When her stepmother becomes pregnant, Evyn sets out to hop a bus to Maine. The beginnings of acceptance and possibilities are ignited as she learns to follow her inner "wise woman"-her mother's advice-and to "bounce" with the changes in her life. Friend offers no fairy-tale ending but presents, through hip conversations and humor, believable characters and a feel-good story with a satisfying amount of pathos.-D. Maria LaRocco, Cuyahoga Public Library, Strongsville, OH Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Voice of Youth Advocates

Every year when Evyn blows out her birthday candles, she wishes for a mother because hers died when she was one year old. As she turns thirteen, her world shatters when her father, Birdie, announces that he is getting married and moving Evyn and her brother, Mackey, to Boston. Evyn was comfortable and happy being part of a threesome, but now she is getting a stepmother she barely knows and six new brothers and sisters-not quite what she wished for. Evyn has always been able to tell her father everything, but since their move to Boston, Evyn feels that he has changed and that she cannot talk to him anymore. She is unable to tell him that she is upset about the marriage or about living with total strangers, and she certainly cannot tell him how much she does not fit in at her new school. Things go from bad to worse when Birdie announces that they are pregnant! This novel is an emotional roller coaster, capturing readers' hearts from the first page. Readers will connect with Evyn, laughing and crying right along with her as she struggles to fit in with her quirky yet extremely loving and understanding new family. Evyn wants to love them, but she worries that she will be betraying her own mother. Evyn has imaginary talks with her mother throughout the entire novel, and it is commendable the way Friend has the mother respond by advising Evyn to "bounce" off the name-calling at school and to give her new family a chance. This beautifully written and great coming-of-age novel is short, clean, sweet and will truly engage both middle and high school readers.-Sarah Cofer.