by Paula Fox
First published 1986
Thirteen-year-old Carrie watches her nineteen-year-old half brother Ben transform from the loving, funny sibling she has always known into someone sullen and distant. She cannot make sense of this change in him. When Ben asks her to accompany him to Boston to meet his biological father, Carrie agrees, hoping this trip might bring back the brother she remembers. She wants to believe the old Ben still exists somewhere beneath his new coldness. But their journey to Boston reveals truths that complicate everything Carrie thought she understood about her family and her brother. The reality she discovers forces her to confront a painful recognition. The brother she once knew may be lost forever, and she must find a way to accept who Ben has become now.
Genres: fiction, family, adolescence, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Boston
Period: 20th-century
Paperback · Dell Pub Co