LaBarbera is a psychotherapist and professor, and this is her first published novel about growing up and overcoming trauma. It was a thoughtful book, which I appreciated since I’m very interested in psychology, although I did struggle with some aspects of it.
Kai is a young girl when the story begins; she describes herself as fearless, particularly compared to her sensitive and artistic twin brother Kade. Her family spends every vacation with the Tylers, and Kai is best friends with their daughter and obsessively in love with the oldest son Josh. Her life starts out idyllic but soon the cracks begin to show. Kai’s father drinks too much and is disappointed in his son, and Mr. Tyler is abusive to his wife and children. As the kids get older, Kade becomes depressed, and Kai struggles to take care of her mother, her brother and their friends.
LaBarbera tells Kai’s story slowly, and very much through the lens of Kai as she grows and matures.I liked that Kai is the same age as I am throughout this book – born around 1970, the book follows her through to 2006, when she’s about 35. Since I grew up in the same time, I could relate to a lot of the references to books, movies, and music – as well as the idea of writing letters to long-distance friends.
What I liked most about the book is how real it felt. The characters experience things many of us can identify with, particularly worrying about how family patterns like violence and abuse may repeat themselves, how we know when a relationship is good for us or is holding us back, and how we recover from difficult times and mistakes we’ve made.
I’ll admit that I didn’t like Kai a lot of the time, and I wasn’t sure how much that was intentional on the part of the author, or whether I just found her abrasive. Some of this might be the writing, as the dialog is very confrontational and not at all subtle. Certainly Kai goes through difficult times and those realistically impact her personality. Still, she has quite a temper and often acts inappropriately, initiating huge arguments without any rational basis.
I did find her infatuation with Josh disturbing and found him sympathetic most of the time. His reactions to her felt very understandable. It’s hard for me to relate to the idea that you can fall in love with someone at 7 years old and still be in love with them as an adult. But I suppose it happens, and it sets up an interesting dilemma in the book. Is Kai’s love for Josh immature, and is it more about maintaining a connection to her childhood, than truly loving someone for who they are as an adult?
I was a little bothered by the author’s description of September 11 in the story, mainly because I felt it lacked the detail the author put into so many other parts of this book. For example, at one point the family travels to Hawaii, and LaBarbera goes into rich detail describing the Kilauea National Park, including the volcanic crater. I’ve been there, and I could tell the author clearly had been there too. Yet, on September 11, the author gives us basically a couple of sentences, which was problematic as I’m supposed to believe this event had a huge impact on Kai. I know I can describe everything about that day in vivid detail. I wondered if the author was not comfortable going into detail.
There is a lot of sex in this book, which is fine with me, but it’s quite explicit and I think some readers will be surprised by that. Sex is of course very psychological, and I appreciated that the author explored that, particularly when it’s about power and powerlessness, or love and joy, or just distracting oneself from pain. I’ll note though, there are times in this book the level of detail seemed a little excessive for the tone of the book.
I liked that there were no villains, just people trying to overcome their limitations. The parents felt very real to me, although just as real were the terrible impacts on their children. I also appreciated the conclusion of the book, which I won’t discuss here. Altogether, this was a thoughtful read and one that explores compelling issues.
Note: I received an advanced review copy of this novel from publicist Books Forward. It’s published by Buckberg Mountain Books on June 11, 2024.
