Tell Me Everything - Softcover

Coman, Carolyn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374400059 ISBN 13: 9780374400057

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2006

Synopsis

After her mother dies trying to rescue a boy on a snowy mountain, twelve-year-old Roz searches desperately to understand what happened, and why her mother seemed to choose him over her.
 
"During a search for a lost teenager, Roz Jacoby's mother simply fell off a mountain and out of Roz's life. Feeling confused, betrayed, adrift, and, at times, guilty, 12-year-old Roz plots a course that will take her to Nate, the boy for whom her mother died...Coman's narrative skillfully unveils past events with a subtle emotional intensity that keeps the reader riveted...Pure poetry."-Starred, Booklist  

About this title

About the Author

CAROLYN COMAN lives in South Hampton, New Hampshire.

From Kirkus Reviews

An intense evocation of a 12-year-old who's in a transition that threatens her sanity. Roz's single mother, Ellie--a breadmaker, nurturer, and companion to her only child, born after Ellie was raped by a stranger--died in a fall, apparently while rescuing a young hiker, Nate. Now with her uncle Mike, in Massachusetts, Roz is deeply withdrawn, reliving what might have happened, silently phoning Nate in New Jersey, haunted by unremembered dreams. Family counseling, mandated by Roz's school, is as useless as Mike predicts (he learned to stonewall therapy in a VA hospital); a scene where the two thwart a therapist is a splendid sample of Coman's ability to contrast surfaces with her characters' complex inner reality. In the end, Roz takes charge of her own trauma: catching a bus to New Jersey, she confronts a reluctant Nate (his dad fears a lawsuit) and finds that he knows little more about Ellie's death than she does (it's implied, but never stated, that it might have been suicide). When a frantic Mike catches up with her, the two begin to confide in each other (among other things, it's his dreams, of Vietnam, that have frequently awakened them both). Roz plans a unique, poignantly appropriate ceremony for burying her mother's ashes and finally relaxes her emotional ties enough to become her own person. A wonderfully spare and lyrical first novel, graced with a fresh voice, telling images, and subtly drawn characters who linger in the memory. (Fiction. 12+) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0374400059
• ISBN 13: 9780374400057
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160