Books I've read: We Are Your Parents

 

I don't think it's any secret that I'm a huge fan of Hannah Moskowitz and a new book from her is an insta-buy for me!  So it was a pleasant surprise last week when this book I pre-ordered a while ago showed up in my Kindle.

There are a lot of complicated relationships in this book and protagonist, Sav, is not really mature enough or experienced enough to competently navigate them despite being far more mature than I ever was at her age.  Having a baby does that to a person...

Sav is luckier than many teen mothers in that the father of her baby is still around.  They're best friends and while they don't live together, both their families are supportive and helpful when it comes to childcare.  Especially both grandmothers.

So Sav hasn't been forced to give up on going to school or even her speech competitions or the band she and Malcom are in together.  In fact, for a single mother of a baby, she manages to live her life pretty easily.

It hasn't always been easy though.  Following the baby's birth she had terrible post-partum depression and landed in a psych ward. And if that wasn't bad enough, while she was there, her girlfriend dumped her.  So it's not ideal for her to discover that baby-daddy Malcom has started dating Rose, the girl who broke her heart.

And then there's new girl, Kat, who Sav gets paired with for this year's speech competition.  Brash, uncompromising and an outspoken lesbian, Kat refuses to settle for anything conventional for the contest and pushes Sav to write her own play, based on her experiences.  She's certain it will wow the judges.

As she works through the events of the past year, Sav discovers that when it comes to relationships, there's no such thing as black and white, and while she might see herself as the victim in this particular drama, this might not actually be the truth.

I really liked all the characters in this book.  They all felt very real and flawed, from Sav's mother to the other members of Malcom and Sav's band.  And Sav's growth as a character also felt very real and organic and the book's conclusion was satisfying, even if it was somewhat bittersweet.

So I'd recommend this one wholeheartedly. 

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Sav Bergman has a lot on her plate. She's just getting her life together after having a baby, falling into a postpartum depression after having that baby, and then getting dramatically dumped by her girlfriend, while in the psych ward, following that postpartum depression. Now that she's back at school, it's time to dive back into Speech and Debate, a kind of competitive acting Sav takes more seriously than just about anything besides her daughter. And let's not forget Malcolm: best friend, bandmate, and father of her baby, who she has...very complicated feelings for.

So what she really didn't need was for Malcom to break the news that he's now dating the very same girl who broke Sav's heart in the hospital three months ago. Sav spills that little fact to her new Speech partner--who's unapologetically straightforward, argumentative, and gay, and so far hasn't liked a single play Sav's suggested--who immediately has an idea: Sav should write her own play explaining what the hell happened over the past year, and they'll re-enact that for a panel of judges expecting some nice Vonnegut. But what starts out as a play about flaky girlfriends, disloyal boyfriends, and Sav's role as the innocent victim starts to unravel the more she writes. And as the competition draws closer, Sav is forced to question everything she'd assumed about the people she thought she knew and the future she'd always imagined.

From the author of Stonewall Honor book GONE, GONE, GONE and Sydney Taylor Honor book SICK KIDS IN LOVE, WE ARE YOUR PARENTS is a queer snarl of a story about the messy ways that families are made and the even messier people who make them.