Well, That Was Awkward by Rachel Vail

Abstract

Reviewed by: Well, That Was Awkward by Rachel Vail Karen Coats Vail, Rachel Well, That Was Awkward. Viking, 2017 [320p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-670-01308-1 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-698-17040-7 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 6-9 Gracie knows that her job is to keep her parents happy, to be the sunshine they lost when her sister, Bret, died at seven years old, three years before Gracie was born. Perpetual cheerfulness is hard, though, when she’s hit upside the heart by the hormones that come with being almost fourteen. Suddenly, one of her best friends, AJ, makes her knees feel funny, and she’s thinking more and more about Bret. When she learns, through her best male friend Emmett, that AJ actually likes Gracie’s best girl friend, Sienna, Gracie becomes Sienna’s texting Cyrano, feeding her witty remarks that are met with equally witty comebacks by AJ, which makes Gracie’s heart hurt even more. While she tries to maintain her peppy, affirmative self-talk, she feels second best, both with her friends and her parents, which leads her to miss the fact that she has been, and always will be, first and only in Emmett’s heart. As per her usual blend of energy, wit, and genuine emotion, Vail has created a story that is at once delightfully gossipy, playfully ironic, and deeply moving. The poignancy comes as Gracie proceeds through the welter of emotions that accompany survivor guilt and a longing for a sister she’s never really known, which of course complicates the idea that she even has a right to grieve for her. Gracie has a quality passel of friends, but the real star of the Gracie show is Emmett, who is just simply perfect—a witty Cyrano in his own right as well as the steady anchor through Gracie’s storms. Readers will thus be thoroughly happy if unsurprised when Emmett, lost and found like his emotional analogue, Gracie’s pet tortoise, finally wins the race to Gracie’s heart. [End Page 240] Copyright © 2017 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois