…Annnnnnd ANOTHER starred review!
That’s right, it’s another starred review for A Scar Like a River, this one from the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books!
“★ Especially glorious here is the weaving together of laughter and pain . . . as is Fallon’s ultimate choice to be honest but also, as much as possible, tilt toward joy.”
Here’s the full review:
When Fallon was five, she was attacked by a man with a knife and left with a scar that slashes across her face.
Now she’s thirteen, but she still hasn’t told her parents that the man was her mom’s brother, or that he sexually abused her as a child, or that her mom’s sister found out and brushed it under the rug. Fallon’s mostly trying to focus on middle school, even trying out for the school play, but when her uncle dies, she starts acting out. Her still-unaware parents suggest therapy, where she stumbles into a Survivors of Sexual Assault group, which just might give her the strength to tell her parents what happened and confront her aunt, who was also abused by her uncle. Fallon is an approachable narrator dealing with a terrible secret and yet shows remarkable growth, and her complicated story deals with difficult topics sensitively, neither blowing past them nor delving into trauma for its own sake. She learns to navigate speaking the truth—about her uncle’s actions, about her aunt’s inaction, about the problematic play in which she was cast as the lead—while accepting that actions, even when well-intentioned or necessary, have consequences. Conversations with her theater director about being an actor with a facial difference and with her parents as they figure out how to move forward after Fallon’s revelation give readers with their own difficulties a vision of what being protected by adults can look like. Especially glorious here is the weaving together of laughter and pain, of dealing with difficulties small (when her two best friends start dating) and large (her mom’s chronic illness), as is Fallon’s ultimate choice to be honest but also, as much as possible, tilt toward joy.
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You can learn lots more about the book here. (You can also pre-order your copy of the book there, too!)
Happy reading!
♥ Lisa
