The Fragile Ordinary

Gr 9 Up—Sixteen-year-old Comet Caldwell is the least likely heroine she can imagine. She has an estranged relationship with her upper middle class artist parents, and—despite her two best friends' efforts—going to parties causes her anxiety. Comet would rather spend weekends reading books, writing poetry, or walking along the ocean in Portobello, the coastal suburb of Edinburgh, Scotland, where she lives. That all changes when she is assigned to work with Tobias King, the brilliant new kid from the U.S. who hates school and who couldn't be any more unlike her. As she spends more time with Tobias and with his cousin, Stevie, she learns about Tobias's troubled past, and about Stevie's difficult, working class circumstances. But as Comet and Tobias fall hard for each other, everything else seems to fall apart. Stevie falls in line with drug dealers, and the couple faces jealousy at school. This deeply imagined story with its fully developed cast of characters invites readers to examine their own lives and relationships as they root for Comet and her friends.