Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

My 15-year-old and I finished reading Julie Sternberg’s Summer of Stolen Secrets together last week, and I have to say–I was excited about it, sure, but I wasn’t expecting to love it as much as I did. It’s a bit different from Sternberg’s other books–my two younger girls and I have read two different trilogies by her–but not at all in a bad way; it isn’t illustrated, and it’s much longer, but it resonates with even more depth. It begins with Cat seizing the chance to visit her aunt, uncle, and cousin in Baton Rouge after the two best friends she’s supposed to be at summer camp with turn on her. Her cousin is a rebel with horrible taste in boys–at least, in one particular boy–but the force of even Lexie’s personality pales slightly in comparison to the Jewish grandmother Cat has never known.

The reason Cat has never known her is a mark against her, of course; Safta more or less disowned Cat’s father for marrying a non-Jew, and Cat is partial to her mom. As she gets to know her grandmother better, however, she learns that (of course) nothing is ever as simple as you think it is. (Except, perhaps, for the awfulness of Lexie’s boyfriend.) By the end of her visit, her whole family is affected by what Cat learns about her grandmother.

In an unusual choice, the entire book is written as a sort of letter from Cat to Safta, and while that isn’t my favorite format, it does work surprisingly well. Cat is also funny, in a way that had my daughter and me laughing out loud more than once. Lexie is outrageous but loveable, and Cat’s friend Max is a treasure whenever he pops up. Read this one when you need a book with deftly blended humor and poignancy–and I dare you not to laugh at the fake band names Max and Cat come up with.*

*Yeah, I ended an entire blog post with a preposition. I’m over it.