RAIN FALLING ON EMBERS

Gardner’s YA novel follows a 13-year-old girl whose world is turned upside down when her terminally ill father sends her away to live with her uncle.

Katie McCabe is a troublemaker who causes her single-parent father, Ron—the town’s sheriff—seemingly endless strife. When she and her friend, Tommy, accidentally set a neighbor’s shed on fire while smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol, her dad does the unimaginable: he arranges for her to live with her uncle, Charlie, and his family. As Katie reels from the devastating news, she discovers her father’s true reason for the decision—he has terminal cancer. The strength of this story is in the emotional intensity and complexity of Katie’s painful journey of self-discovery. The author explores the turbulent teen years masterfully, examining numerous themes that will surely resonate with young readers, including bullying, dealing with grief and loss, first love, and finding one’s place in the world. Additionally, Gardner does a good job of capturing the personality of a 13-year-old, particularly through the deft use of first-person POV; When Katie notes the school principal’s crooked bow tie, she thinks to herself: “He didn’t need any help being dorkified.” The novel’s thematic power, however, is undermined by its complete lack of specificity when it comes to time and place. Readers are given no indicators of when the story takes place or where it is set, which lends the narrative a groundless feel. This nebulosity gives rise to numerous questions that take the reader out of the story: Why doesn’t anyone have cellphones, although other electronic devices are referenced? Where are the security cameras at the school? Where is it commonplace to see a student on horseback at a middle school? Finally, the contrived nature of some of the plot points in the latter half of the novel rankles; to say the story’s events defy believability is an understatement.

Too many miscues hamper this novel’s potential to create a believable and endearing teen protagonist.