The Place You're Supposed to Laugh
The Place You're Supposed to Laugh
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7.13 Books
Annotation: Everything is changing for Chad Loudermilk in 2002 Silicon Valley as his dad is about to lose his job after the dot.com bubble burst, his mom isn't the same after his grandma died and he begins to wonder about his birth parents.
 
Reviews: 2
Catalog Number: #6571694
Format: Paperback
Publisher: 7.13 Books
Copyright Date: 2018
Edition Date: 2018 Release Date: 11/14/18
Pages: 321 pages
ISBN: 0-9913687-2-X
ISBN 13: 978-0-9913687-2-3
Dewey: Fic
LCCN: 2018950754
Dimensions: 22 cm.
Language: English
Reviews:
ALA Booklist (Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)

Fourteen-year-old Chad is an outsider, the black son of white adoptive parents. Moreover, he is the only black student at tony Palo Alto High School, where he has just one friend, Walter, whom he loses when the boy's parents transfer him to a private school. Meanwhile, things are not going well at home. His grandmother has died, and his mother is bereft; the year is 2002 and the dot-com bubble has burst, leaving his father's job at risk. Then it is revealed that his father has been having a clandestine affair with the woman next door, and he moves out. Yes, it's shaping up to be the worst year of Chad's life. But then he meets two African American boys, Marcus and Andre, and he is no longer friendless. At the same time, he meets Kara, the new girl in school, and the two launch a cautious relationship. And suddenly things are not so bleak after all. Rossmann's quiet family novel is nicely done, with a believable plot, agreeably empathic characters, and a plausible happy ending r Chad and the reader.

Kirkus Reviews

A black teenager struggles to come to terms with his identity, his troubled past, and his broken home in Silicon Valley.The year is 2002, and 14-year-old Chad Loudermilk is trying to cope as best he can. He's black, but everyone in his surrounding community of Palo Alto is white, the parents who adopted him included. His family is falling apart—his father, Ray, is struggling to make ends meet while constantly comparing himself to their wealthy neighbors, the MacAvoys, while his mother, Allison, is struggling with the recent death of her mother. When Chad's only friend, Walter Chen, falls ill, things with the MacAvoys reach a breaking point, and Palo Alto begins to turn into modern Silicon Valley, Chad finds himself thinking more and more about his birthparents in a quest to connect with where he came from and figure out who he wants to be. An array of diverse characters peppers Rossmann's debut, which brims with the essence of the early years of the century. Allison's sister, Diana Marchese, feels the fullest of the cast, and scenes of her romantic entanglements at academic conferences and reflections on romance, aging, and life feel fresh and true to life. Rossmann, who is white, takes on the tough challenge of making her main character a black teenager, and though Chad is vivid and his growth drives the narrative, certain moments that center on race and racial anxiety can feel grating, such as when Rossmann describes a party crowd as "black and Latino, throbbing to the beat of the music as if organically connected to it." Though the novel suffers from slight lethargy at its outset, it picks up quite effectively, has a strong finish, and stands as a testament to a changing city in a changing country at a defining time in history.A thoughtful, caring examination of race, class, and wealth in America.

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ALA Booklist (Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)
Kirkus Reviews
Reading Level: 7.0
Interest Level: 7-12

It's 2002 in Silicon Valley. 9/11's still fresh, the dot-com bubble has burst, and holy calamity is raining down on 14-year-old Chad Loudermilk. His father is about to lose his job, his mother isn't the same since Chad's grandma died, and as one of the few black kids at tony Palo Alto High School, Chad's starting to wonder about his birth parents. Next door lives dot-com mogul Scot MacAvoy, with his luxury SUV and his gardeners and his beautiful wife and his time to play video games with Chad, all making the Loudermilk family's struggle to stay afloat seem that much harder. It's going to be a tough year for the Loudermilks. THE PLACE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO LAUGH is wise and witty novel about the Silicon Valley that's not covered in the fawning features in The New York Times . It's a place where the working class, blended Loudermilk family grapple with issues of race and inequality, all while trying to keep a smile on their faces. In the spirit of the works of Celeste Ng and Angela Flournoy, this is a big-hearted page-turner that will make you laugh, cry, and think all at once.


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