Hard to give a review of the book and manage to avoid spoilers, so I'll just say it grew on me. I thought it started strong, bogged a little, but finished well. It's a love story, and a story of overcoming and a story of tragedies and triumphs and I'm glad I gave it a go.

Selected as the Vermont READS Vermont Humanities 2021 book. ( )

I liked the idea of what this book was trying to be, but it just didn’t work. The letter writing format only made sense in the beginning when they didn’t know each other. But as they start to interact in real life, the letter writing felt far-fetched and wasn’t the best way to convey the story. It was also difficult to believe that teenagers were speaking and thinking that way. Beyond the believability aspect, it was a good story with good characters. ( )

Recommended by Ari S.

Second-time high school senior and recently ex-football player Adam Kurlansky is paired up with sophomore Jonathan Hopkirk, a Walt Whitman fanboy who mainly hangs out with his older sister Shayna and her firebrand best friend Bron, for a letter-writing assignment for English class. "Kurl" and "Little Jo" begin writing more frequently than required, leading to an off-the-page relationship, although frequently their letters contain accounts of events they were both present for. Jo is surviving high school by looking ahead; Kurl is surviving each day keeping the secret of his abusive uncle/stepfather. Jonathan and Shayna's dad, Lyle, has been keeping a secret from them too, about their mom, Raphael, who became addicted to painkillers after an accident.

See also: Take Me With You When You Go by David Levithan and Jennifer Niven

Quotes

People can't really help themselves: They see a bubble, they want to pop it. (Kurl to Jo, 12)

The thing about heroes is that they ask without asking: What about you? What are you waiting for? (Kurl, 17)

It's easier to write what I'm thinking about if I actually have time to think. (Jonathan, 42)

People have no idea what I'm like. I mean the gap between what people see and what's actually in my head sort of shocks me when I read your letters. I guess everyone has this gap. It's just that they don't come face-to-face with it very often. (Kurl, 45)

If the disadvantage to a letter-writing relationship is an occasional period of suspense, then the upside is this joyful abundance when it commences again. (Jonathan, 89)

A person can never really know another person, I suppose. Not all the way through. (Jo, 131)

This is why I can't agree with your life-begins-after-high-school-so-just-wait-it-out philosophy....It's that now - right now, right this second - is the only actual time we're alive. (Kurl, 163)

Mark said all this has something to do with trauma. The flow of information gets interrupted somehow in your brain. (Kurl, 322) ( )

CW: Child abuse, homophobia, bullying, sexual content ( )

This is such a sweet book that will also slowly break you as you yell, "Don't fucking do it!" at these characters. However, there are a few issues that I couldn't overlook.

The entire book is written in epistolary format (the letters are written between the two main characters) which isn't going to be for everyone. When I first opened it, I was a little disappointed at that and didn't think I'd be able to finish it. However, I started to really like the character voice(s), even with the total unrealistic writing "of" 16 and 18 year old high school boys. Looking past the prose and sweetness between them, their voices started to become one-in-the-same which the author tries to explain away by saying how much Kurt as grown/matured which seemed like a cheap cop-out. That's why one author writing a book solely from the inner-voices of two very different characters - one is a soft and out and one is a sort-of-ex-meathead and questioning - is really hard to execute and Henstra was no exception. No amount of bluegrass and poetry is going to give this sort of voice to a 16 year old boy.
Also, I've lived in the same city as these characters for the last 5 years and there were some odd choices. Looking up the author, she's from Canada and I didn't see that she at any time lived in Minneapolis. Why she chose to place the book here is beyond me. A major location in the book, The Ace (Club), was a real place that would have worked perfectly with what the author wrote it as - if it hadn't closed in the mid-90s and was now called The Dubliner. There was no mention of The Current or Prairie Home Companion/Live from Here that Jo and Lyle would have certainly listened to, there was no mention of The Turf Club, The Cedar, or even First Ave (despite the Paisley Palace being entered by the characters TWICE?? by some sort of Facebook magic) which are all currently still open and classic music venues, and would have worked just as well as The Ace. It just seemed that the author didn't speak to someone who actually lives here or research it beyond what they may know from being a fan of Prince. I ended up having to think of this as some sort of alternate-Minneapolis or a completely fictional city.
The drug addiction and prostitution leading to the death of their mother when Jo and Shayla were kids was also a major plot point that wasn't actually well-executed and never really had the impact I think that the author wanted, it just gave Shayla a complex that made her more and more unlikeable as it developed over the year this book takes place. It just seemed like some side commentary about the opioid crisis, especially since we're really only getting one side of the story. I just felt really bad for Lyle who seemed like he really was doing the best he could as a single, widowed dad and Shayla just comes across as an out-and-out piece of shit child that doesn't deserve a dad like that.

Despite these issues, I actually really did enjoy this book and would read a "the college years" sequel. ( )