Mountain Upside Down

Gr 3-7–Alex, 13, has lived with her grandmother in the small town of Faillin, OR, since she was a baby and her mother died. Her relationship with her father and stepmother is tenuous at best, and Alex feels responsible for her grandmother, whom she worries is becoming overly forgetful. Alex and her best friend PJ have started navigating what it means to be girlfriends rather than just friends. The town library is her refuge, where a kind librarian provides guidance and support. Alex’s life takes a major turn when she learns that PJ is moving to Portland, which sets off a series of events that results in her learning that she has a long-lost uncle, her beloved library is closing, and that her grandmother is worse off than she thought. Although the story has its moments—the relationship between Alex and PJ feels genuine, and teens will commiserate with Alex trying to handle big changes—the novel has a tendency to meander. Readers don’t learn Alex’s age, for example, until almost halfway through the book. Body image issues—PJ is fit and athletic, Alex is not—are brought up in early chapters, then dropped. Several overly descriptive passages about Alex’s period do little to advance the story. The rift between Alex’s grandmother and her uncle, though a major plot point, is never fully explained.