The Chance You Won't Return - Hardcover

Cardi, Annie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0763662925 ISBN 13: 9780763662929

Publisher: Candlewick, 2014

Synopsis

When your mom thinks she’s Amelia Earhart, navigating high school, first love, and family secrets is like flying solo without a map.

Driver’s ed and a first crush should be what Alex Winchester is stressed out about in high school — and she is. But what’s really on her mind is her mother. Why is she dressing in Dad’s baggy khaki pants with a silk scarf around her neck? What is she planning when she pores over maps in the middle of the night? When did she stop being Mom and start being Amelia Earhart? Alex tries to keep her budding love life apart from the growing disaster at home as her mother sinks further into her delusions. But there are those nights, when everyone else is asleep, when it’s easier to confide in Amelia than it ever was to Mom. Now, as Amelia’s flight plans become more intense, Alex is increasingly worried that Amelia is planning her final flight — the flight from which she never returns. What could possibly be driving Mom’s delusions, and how far will they take her?

About this title

About the Author

Annie Cardi holds an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College. Her short stories have appeared in the Georgetown Review, Vestal Review, and other publications. In 2011, PEN New England selected her as a winner of the Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery Award for the manuscript that would become The Chance You Won’t Return, her debut novel. Annie Cardi lives near Boston with her husband and a portrait of a sea captain.

Reviews

Gr 9 Up—Driver's Ed is turning junior year into a nightmare for Alex. She keeps having panic attacks when she gets behind the wheel. But that is nothing compared to home, where her mother has had a psychotic break and is convinced that she is Amelia Earhart. Alex is acutely embarrassed and desperate to keep her friends and new boyfriend in the dark about her home life. Her father needs Alex's help with taking care of her younger siblings while he tries to get his wife the care she needs. Alex often sneaks downstairs in the middle of the night to have heartfelt talks with "Amelia," in whom she can confide more easily than when she was "mom." It can be hard to sympathize with Alex and her family. Cardi has captured the all-consuming self-absorption of which teens are capable, and the family interactions read as very mean-spirited. The author has also given Alex a slightly older, slightly dangerous, enormously kind, and patient cliché of a boyfriend. But the novel's central theme is a clever, deft twist on the idea of leaving home. At a time of life when teenagers should be the ones departing, even just by learning to drive or going to dances, the author has Alex's mother threatening to abandon the family without ever saying it. As Amelia, she is looking over charts and maps, preparing for a final flight, and Alex fears that her mother may disappear and like Earhart, never return. A novelist to watch.—Geri Diorio, Ridgefield Library, CT

Alex has always flown under the radar, and that’s all right with her. But her junior year is hit with significant turbulence when her mother begins suffering a most peculiar delusion: she believes she is Amelia Earhart. This becomes increasingly difficult to hide from others, especially when Alex’s foibles in driver’s ed make her infamous and draw her toward Jim, a sweet guy who offers her free driving lessons. It may have a madcap ring to it, but debut author Cardi smartly casts it as serious drama, with Mom’s every eccentric behavior (taking flight notes on maps, setting up her cockpit in the bathtub) feeling like another small tragedy. The getting-to-know-you banter between Alex and Jim is not overly fresh, though it does dovetail nicely with the main plot, which allows Cardi to exercise a number of effective metaphors about wearing disguises and disappearing. Mom-as-Amelia is an especially thorny character, one who delivers surprisingly solid advice while remaining heartbreakingly mad. For sure, a unique look at the effect of mental illness on loved ones. Grades 8-11. --Daniel Kraus

Edition details

• Publisher: Candlewick
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0763662925
• ISBN 13: 9780763662929
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352