Catherine Calhoun and Elliott Youngblood first meet as young teens, and they have a lot in common. Both are socially awkward, have strained family relations (especially with their mothers), and are smart and artistic. But Elliott is Native American and not accepted in the small Oklahoma town where Catherine's family have been highly influential until very recently. Each has a shameful family secret to hide, and chapters told alternately over the course of many years chart their growing attraction to each other, their development as individuals, and their eventual romantic relationship. Major issues tackled include mental illness, and Catherine's mother's downward spiral is believable and empathetically portrayed. A comfortable, formulaic romance in the spirit of Nicholas Sparks, this will be popular with romance fans. Although McGuire's simple plot doesn't require this number of pages, it's the cozy feel of the characters and the inevitability of their togetherness that will hold readers.

Catherine Calhoun has the misfortune of coming from a once-rich white oil family that has been blamed for the deaths of those exposed to the by-products of smelter that seeped into the water supply.Even worse, her parents' relationship deteriorates after her father loses his job in their dying rural Oklahoma town. Down the block, Cherokee teen Elliot Youngblood is spending the summer with his aunt and uncle due to his parents' tumultuous and violent marriage. Elliot finds the nerve to approach Catherine, and the two forge a friendship, becoming inseparable. On the day Catherine's father tragically dies from a heart attack, Elliot is forced to go home without a chance to say goodbye. Two years later, the beginning of their senior year, Elliot returns to find Catherine angry and heartbroken. Her life has led her to a darker place: Her home now serves as a boardinghouse full of unsafe strangers. As Catherine and Elliot attempt to rekindle their friendship, Catherine hides the terrible behavior of the guests as well as the deterioration of her mother's mental health. There are a few stereotypical references (Elliot's mother is painted with a feather in her hair and mentions of bronze skin and cheekbones), but this is an engaging story of two wounded kids who find solace in a friendship that blossoms into a touching first love. A young adult love story laced with warmth, angst, and hope. (Fiction. 14-18)

Gr 8 Up-Elliott Youngblood and Catherine Calhoun are outsiders in the desolate town of Oak Creek, OKElliott, because he is Cherokee; Catherine, who is white, because her family owned a smelting plant that poisoned the town. When Elliott visited his aunt and uncle in Oak Creek the summer before his freshman year, he and Catherine developed an instantaneous connection. But on the same day that Catherine's beloved father died unexpectedly, Elliott is dragged back to his hometown. Catherine spends the next three years working at her family's bed-and-breakfast and trying to forget Elliott, until he reappears during their senior year. But things are no longer as simple as they used to be, and Catherine harbors a dark secret that threatens to tear them apart. While this romance concludes with a clever and disturbing twist, the ending is tonally incongruous with the repetitive love story that precedes it. A narrow focus on Catherine and Elliott's relationship leaves little room for character development. The author relies on tropes to flesh out some of the secondary characters readers meet, such as an African American paying guest, who periodically stays at the family's establishment and voluntarily cooks, cleans, and takes care of Catherine, while giving the young woman life lessons. Catherine's ill-defined problems take center stage, even though Elliott experiences racist abuse and domestic violence. VERDICT Poor pacing and flat, stereotypical characters make McGuire's YA debut one to skip. Elizabeth Giles, Lubuto Library Partners, Zambia