Seventeen Against the Dealer

School Library Journal

Gr 8-12 This final volume about the Tillerman family is a finely-crafted novel about goals and values and about nurturing relationships rather than taking them for granted. Dicey is now 21, and she once again exhibits the single-minded determination that served her so well in Homecoming (1981) and Dicey's Song (1982, both Atheneum). Here, however, it also works to her disadvantage, for at this point in her life, she is also filled with youthful arrogance, foolish independence, and naivety. She has saved enough money to start a boatyard business, and she is fiercely determined to make a go of it. She makes serious business errors and lets herself be duped by a con artist. Throughout, her blinders keep her working to the point of exhaustion and obsession, all the while missing what is happening in her family and to her relationship with her boyfriend, Jeff. Between New Year's Day and Valentine's Day, Dicey follows her spiritual quest, finally realizing that while achieving one's goals is important, so too are family, knowledge, and personal growth. As Dicey becomes more involved in her work, family members fade from the pages, and readers are as isolated from them as Diceyuntil an emergency brings her back to reality. Descriptions are vivid; writing is in turn leisurely and clipped; characters spring to life, all revealing their own strengths and weaknesses. Stunning performavealing their own strengths and weaknesses. Stunning performances from all of the Tillermans. Trev Jones, ``School Library Journal''