Before the car accident that took away his parents, Gabe was an average kid with a penchant for baseball and a cringe-worthy awkwardness around girls. Now Gabe finds himself the sole guardian of his grandfather, who suffers from a form of Alzheimer's. Gabe's life descends into chaos, exacerbated by the sudden appearance of his father's prodigal brother, Nick. Only his best friend John Chen and a punky hospital urchin named Sofia keep Gabe going, even when his love for his grandfather threatens his own future. Morelli imbues Gabe with a strong narrative voice that shows his strength and his stubbornness. Suddenly thrust into a parenting role, Gabe ardently resists advice to commit his grandfather to a care facility, despite Gabe's inability to properly care for him. Especially poignant is Gabe's evolving relationship with his uncle Nick, a deadbeat whose checkered past only adds to Gabe's hardships. Full of heart and humor, this will make young readers take stock of their own parents' responsibilities, and what it means to make sacrifices for the ones you love.

After the deaths of his parents, a boy is left to care for his ill grandfather.Eighteen-year-old white teen Gabe LoScuda just wants to play video games with his buddy John Chen, a first-generation Chinese-American, and pine over a girl at school. But his life is turned upside down when his parents are killed in a car accident. Suddenly he's forced to take care of his grandfather, who's addled by Pick's disease, a form of dementia, and prone to violent outbursts. Gabe remembers his father promising never to send the old man away, so he does the same. At his parents' funeral, Gabe's estranged uncle, Nick, appears and offers to move in, proving to be more couch potato than help. In a hospital waiting room, Gabe meets Sofia, a Mexican-American tattoo artist and lover of punk music. The two build a rapport, and things begin to look up until Grandpa's unpredictable behavior puts the tenuous balance in jeopardy. And Gabe will do anything, even ruin his own future, to keep anyone from taking Grandpa away. As a character, Gabe's dynamic and real—he's fiercely loyal and an ardent fan of poetry—but everyone else falls prey to tropes. It's Gabe's dedication to his family despite the pain they cause him that elevates an otherwise predictable story.An uneven love song to the hardships of caring for ailing family. (Fiction. 14-18)