Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Have you ever read Jennifer L. Holm’s The Fourteenth Goldfish?  Because as of tonight, I have.  And it’s weird.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good-weird.  And funny-weird.  But seriously, when you’ve got a 11-year-old main character whose mother is a drama teacher (divorced from Ellie’s father, the actor, although they’re still friends) with the hippest wardrobe in the house, and whose grandfather, a scientist with his own fan club (in Helsinki!), has reversed the aging process, turned himself into a teenager, and moved in with them, well–you’ve got a weird book.

Here’s the thing, though–it’s Jennifer L. Holm.  And so it totally works.  Melvin (the grandfather/sullen teenage boy) is snarky, blunt, and crotchety in a disturbingly perfect old-man-teenager kind of way, and Ellie is a beautifully normal 11-year-old, dealing with changing friendships, parental expectations, and some unexpected life upheavals.  Add in the question of whether aging ought to be reversible, a performance of the same play Auggie Pullman sees his sister in, and an awful lot of take-out, and?  You get a touch of well-written, strange, and (often) hilarious magic.  If that works for you, you should absolutely read this book.  (If it doesn’t, just try something else by Holm instead.)  Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to the sequel!