FEED RUBY TO THE WOLVES

In this YA contemporary novel, a guarded Texas teen gains life-changing insights into her fractured family after she is given her mother’s 1990s journal.

Jade Jennings, 14, lives in Oak Grove, Texas, where “the only person in the whole universe that gets me” is her cousin Colby. They “catch a lot of flack at home because we always have our nose in a book. And then we catch a lot of flack from people at school because we live out on the ‘Jennings’ Compound’ like a bunch of welfare hillbillies.” Jade tries her best to avoid her drug-using, ex-con, widowed father, who lives in a camper with her on the compound. She is also wary of Mrs. Patterson, her high school counselor, who keeps checking in on Jade, which can only mean trouble. But Jade does find pleasure in the job that she worked her “way into,” minding 8-year-old Jathan, the abandoned “fire station baby” adopted by a middle-class couple in town; hanging out with Colby; and doodling in a journal. This shaky equilibrium gets disrupted when Mrs. Patterson hands Jade the journal that Ruby, the teen’s mother, started in 1994. At the time, Ruby was about Jade’s age. By reading through Ruby’s journal entries, Jade learns more about her mother’s struggles: her placement in a group foster home, the push-pull of her parents’ age-inappropriate relationship, and then, most critically, the series of events that led to the teen’s death. By the novel’s end, Jade has a new understanding of her world and shares with Mrs. Patterson a long-held secret of her own.

Stewart’s spare, stark novel is an artful showcase for two compelling, first-person coming-of-age stories. Readers first invest in Jade through her acerbic, wise child commentary, as when she refers to Jathan’s mother as “having the soul of a parakeet and all.” Then, along with Jade, readers dive deep into Ruby’s romantic yearnings and aspirations and then tragic missteps in dramatic “real time” through her page-turning journal accounts. The tale’s White-trash milieu feels a bit over-the-top at times, with the Jennings’ compound including a mean grandmother who figures little in the plot. The book also ends rather abruptly, with Jade’s terse acknowledgement of the true role a person plays in her life. While Jade’s disclosure of her secret late in the story doesn’t come as a complete surprise given the hints she sprinkles throughout her narrative, her full detailing of her last days with her mother has a payoff. It’s a striking sequence of sadness and horror that makes for a potent, cinematic moment. Furthermore, this tale conjures up a visual world in its detailing of the sketches and drawings that both teens engage in and discuss. In addition to Jade and Ruby shining bright as distinct teen voices, several secondary characters—including Colby, Jade’s father, and a local drug-world figure—are fleshed out with some sympathy and nuance. While this poignant story has its downbeat elements, it ultimately delivers uplifting notes that not all adults are to be feared and that Jade, stronger than her mother, has a future that holds promise.

A moving family tale that offers a powerful set of mother-daughter teen narratives.