School Library Journal Starred Review (Thu Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2022)

Gr 5–8— Eighth-grader Quinn is an underachiever, a failure who can never live up to her perfect older brother with his perfect grades and perfect college life. Quinn knows this is true because she is the reason her parents fight. She can't do even a simple ollie like her best friend Jack and Jade, the girl who is taking her place. Then one terrible, siren-splitting, glass-shattering night changes it all. A tornado tears through her neighborhood and her house, uprooting everything Quinn knows about herself. She begins to write poetry. As all of Quinn's relationships change—meeting new friends, getting her old ones in trouble, facing her parents' divorce, and discovering her own talent—she emerges as someone new. The telling of this novel in verse reflects the main character's own journey into words and poetry while crafting a story of pure emotion. Quinn's narrative begins fixated on her failure and brother Forest, then morphs into verse reflecting pain, confusion, and confidence as she deals with the storm's destruction. Varying text styles and placement create a visual playground. The raw emotion of the book means some characters aren't as well fleshed out as readers might like, and at times Quinn's voice reads older than 13 years old. Although the cover depicts a red-haired girl with light skin, it is unclear what Quinn or her family look like; there are only hints of other characters' appearance, such as Jade having blonde hair and tan skin. Place is also amorphous as Quinn lives in an unspecified urban environment. This, however, may allow more readers to relate to the beautiful journey of transition that Quinn embarks upon. VERDICT A book in verse that vibrates with the emotional transition of a teenager into a confident poet that should find its way to many library shelves.

ALA Booklist (Tue Jan 03 00:00:00 CST 2023)

Skater? Gamer? Poet? Thirteen-year-old Quinn isn't sure what she is aside from subpar. She can't hold a candle to her perfect, high-achieving older brother; her grades are a joke; and she's losing her best friend to a cooler, way more talented skater girl. Oh, and she's sure she's the reason her parents' marriage is on the rocks. The only thing cracking through the heavy weight of these beliefs is a caring teacher's poetry class. This verse novel, written from Quinn's perspective, reflects the different poetic forms she learns as she pens poems for a final project. Her already shaky foundation receives a significant blow when a tornado cuts through town, causing severe damage to her house. Left without a phone or computer and forced to move into a creepy basement apartment, Quinn turns to poetry as she wrestles with her complicated feelings and sense of identity. Grief and confusion over growing up are palpable throughout this novel, but Quinn's personal growth will keep readers by her side as she finds her way to a brighter future.

Horn Book (Fri Jan 13 00:00:00 CST 2023)

In this verse novel, eighth grader Quinn is dealing with a lot of tension and change: her parents are constantly fighting, her best friend is drifting away, and her own sense of self is shifting. Then a tornado hits her neighborhood; her day-to-day life is disrupted, and fissures in her closest relationships are cracked wide open. The story unfolds in three parts: "The Before," "During and Immediately After," and "The After." Throughout her honest first-person narration, Quinn takes refuge in writing and, with a sympathetic teacher's encouragement, slowly begins to see herself as a poet. School assignments introduce her to a variety of forms, such as acrostic, cinquain, diamante, and found poems. Eventually she shares her own evocative free verse: "I'm going to keep / write-thinking / on who / I mean / to be"; "Choose a path -- and do what it takes / to walk it, even when it hurts." DuBois moves back and forth between adolescent angst in a conversational voice and insightful reflection full of metaphor and personification in this thought-provoking novel. Sylvia Vardell

Kirkus Reviews

A tornado influences Quinn to become a poet during an already unstable eighth grade year.Quinn's older brother, the star of the family, has left for college; her parents are constantly arguing, possibly over her terrible grades; and her longtime (and once best) friend, Jack, who shares her love for skateboarding and gaming, seems more interested in Jade, the new girl in town. What else could go wrong this year? A tornado that rips through her house. It's also National Poetry Month, and Quinn's English class has been tasked to write a poem a day; her poems become the basis of this work. Told in segments taking place before, during, and after the tornado and in a variety of formats, the verse not only reflects all the changes in the presumably White 13-year-old's life, but how she's reacting to them internally. Amid the chaos, there are beautiful turns of phrase ("Houses spill themselves into yards, / cough their curtains out their windows / as if they've grown tired of their people") and moments of kindness when Quinn's community rallies together. She realizes that the force of the tornado has altered her in more ways than one, encouraging her to become a poet, set new goals, make new friends, and adapt to family shifts. In turn, as Quinn learns the process of writing, readers follow her own life revisions.A blend of lovely writing and insightful middle school dynamics. (Verse novel. 9-13)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

A class poetry assignment helps an aimless 13-year-old grapple with the aftermath of a devastating tornado in this graceful and perceptive novel in verse. Quinn Nash is content to drift through eighth grade, invisibly living in the shadow of her “perfect” college-age brother, gaming and learning skating tricks with lifelong best friend Jack and charismatic new friend Jade, and mediating her parents’ arguments, but her life is upended when a tornado sweeps through her neighborhood, destroying the family’s house: “Nothing that was mine/ yesterday is mine today.” Deeply affected by the devastation, Quinn surveys the Tennessee town’s damage and, while helping cleanup efforts, discovers pleasure and value in both volunteer work and in writing a poem each day. To her uneasiness, Jack and Jade, personally untouched by the disaster, revel in the lawless freedom of preoccupied adults and canceled school, engaging in vandalism that creates a gulf between the formerly inseparable friends. In three free-verse sections, attentive word choice from Brooks DuBois (The Places We Sleep) exhibits the healing power of writing, charting Quinn’s evolution from passive and insecure observer to conscientious aspiring poet. Characters default to white. Ages 8–12. Agent: Louise Fury, Bent Agency. (Nov.)