To Night Owl from Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Abstract

Reviewed by: To Night Owl from Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan Deborah Stevenson, Editor Sloan, Holly Goldberg To Night Owl from Dogfish; by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer. Dial, 2019 [320p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-525-55323-6 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-525-55325-0 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 4-7 In this epistolary novel comprising emails and texts, Californian Bett Devlin reaches out to New Yorker Avery Bloom when Bett’s father and Avery’s father start dating. Soon the two girls are being sent off to camp together while their dads embark on a motorcycle trip through China, and unfortunately just as the girls bond tightly despite their differences (Bett is breezy, Avery is anxious) it turns out their fathers have broken up over theirs. Now the girls are determined to find a way to stay part of each other’s lives—and maybe even get their fathers back together. The book’s affectionately satirical take on our twelve-year-old heroines and their approaches to life is funny, and the epistolary format is an engaging way into the girls’ personalities and defenses. The Parent Trap–style plot suffers from that trope’s usual problems of contrivance and what in real life would be bad parenting to move the plot along, however, and the addition of several unlikely subplots (Bett effects a reunion between Avery and her birth mother, Bett’s country grandmother ends up a Broadway star) weights down the frothy story. The zippy email exchanges are still amusing reading, though, and they may inspire kids to try their own hands at the form. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois