Reviewed by Rebecca Wells for TeensReadToo.com
When JP O'Brien's Grandma Mary dies, his orderly world quickly begins to unravel - his mentally challenged father becomes completely lost, and his mother, Mam, starts acting quite unlike her usual sheltered self. JP tries to make do in this new world, but when Mam wins a farmhouse in an essay contest and the family moves, things really come apart.
Mam insists on opening the farmhouse to just about every neighborhood outcast who comes by, and suddenly the house is filled with strangers who borrow his things without asking, and seem to be creating a world in the farmhouse that doesn't include JP or his father.
All JP wants is for the world to reorder itself, and his family to be restored to what it used to be. But what if the world is meant to stay the way it is? As the people in his life begin to make space for this sudden chaos, JP finds himself realizing that maybe family is more than just the people you're born with, and maybe chaos isn't the worst thing that has happened to him.
In this novel, Han Nolan presents a boy struggling to maintain control of his world even as it slips between his fingers. JP O'Brien is a sympathetic protagonist whose worries draw the reader into his world, and we find ourselves hoping that he gets what he wants.
Not everything that is broken gets fixed in A FACE IN EVERY WINDOW, but this novel is a heartwarming tale of family and friendship nonetheless.
When JP O'Brien's Grandma Mary dies, his orderly world quickly begins to unravel - his mentally challenged father becomes completely lost, and his mother, Mam, starts acting quite unlike her usual sheltered self. JP tries to make do in this new world, but when Mam wins a farmhouse in an essay contest and the family moves, things really come apart.
Mam insists on opening the farmhouse to just about every neighborhood outcast who comes by, and suddenly the house is filled with strangers who borrow his things without asking, and seem to be creating a world in the farmhouse that doesn't include JP or his father.
All JP wants is for the world to reorder itself, and his family to be restored to what it used to be. But what if the world is meant to stay the way it is? As the people in his life begin to make space for this sudden chaos, JP finds himself realizing that maybe family is more than just the people you're born with, and maybe chaos isn't the worst thing that has happened to him.
In this novel, Han Nolan presents a boy struggling to maintain control of his world even as it slips between his fingers. JP O'Brien is a sympathetic protagonist whose worries draw the reader into his world, and we find ourselves hoping that he gets what he wants.
Not everything that is broken gets fixed in A FACE IN EVERY WINDOW, but this novel is a heartwarming tale of family and friendship nonetheless.
