Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2018
Pages: 282
Rating: Do Not Recommend
Synopsis: The year is 1988, and America is full of broken homes. Every Other Weekend drops us into the sun-scorched suburbs of southern California, amid Bret Michaels mania and Cold War hysteria, with Nenny a wildly precocious, nervous nelly of an eight-year-old, as our guide to the newly rearranged life she finds herself leading after her parents split.
Nenny and her mother and two brothers have just moved in with her new stepfather and his two kids. Her old life is replaced by this new configuration, Nenny's natural anxieties intensify, and both real and imagined dangers entwine: earthquakes and home invasions, ghosts of her stepfather's days in Vietnam, Gorbechev knocking down the door of her third grade class and recruiting them into the Red Army. Knock-kneed and a little stormy-eyed, she is far too small for the thoughts that haunt her, yet her fears are not entirely unfounded. Indeed, tragedy does come, but it comes at her sideways, in a way she never imagined.
With an irresistible voice, Summerfield has managed to tap the very truth of what it is to have been a child of her generation, bottle it, and serve it up in devastating, hilarious, heartfelt doses. Every Other Weekend beautifully and unsettlingly captures the terrible wisdom that children often possess, as well as the surprising ways in which families fracture and reform.
Review: This book appealed to me because my kids split time between two homes - week to week though - not every other weekend. Ultimately though, this gave me no insight into their lives. I was 11 years old in 1988 so while I went into this expecting to relate to my children, I found it myself relating to it instead.
Nenny's imagined scenarios brought about by her fears were relatable. I don't know how much time I spent thinking the Soviets would come to my classroom, but we've all had our fears morph into stories of their own. Heck, I still do this as an adult.
I can't recommend this novel because it is just so odd, but it might hold some appeal. Hey, at least it's short.
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