Calli

by Jessica Lee Anderson

Overview

In Calli, prize-winning author Jessica Lee Anderson explores the perils of adolescence with the humor and compassion of a writer who knows growing up doesn’t always come with easy answers.

Calli has almost everything she could want in life—two loving moms, a good-looking boyfriend, and a best friend who has always been there for her. As an only child, Calli is excited when her parents announce that they want to foster a girl her own age, but Cherish, her foster sister, is not at all what she expected. Cherish lies, steals, kisses Calli’s boyfriend, and seems to get away with just about everything. Determined to get even, Calli takes matters into her own hands, but her plan for revenge goes horribly awry. Isolated from her friends and family, she looks for ways to undo the damage she’s caused.

Funny, moving, and emotionally rich, Calli is a portrait of an endearing young woman caught between adolescence and adulthood, striving to do the right thing even when all of her options seem wrong.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781571316998
Publisher:	Milkweed Editions
Publication date:	09/13/2011
Pages:	198
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

Editorial Reviews

When one of her two moms is diagnosed with lupus and a new foster sister her own age moves in, things become complicated for Calli.

Life in her Louisiana suburb has been pretty straightforward, with boyfriend Dub lighting up the romance and friend Delia a solid support. All of that goes haywire when new foster sibling Cherish makes a play for Dub, Delia finds a new buddy and Calli finds she is unable to turn to either mom for help. Another foster child is anticipated, and the circumstance, while not overwhelming, begins to really eat at her.Attempts to teach Cherish what it feels like to have her stuff co-opted backfire, and Calli learns the hard way that retribution isn't all it's cracked up to be. On the typical teen-angst scale, this is fairly tepid, though it's serious enough to Calli, whose first-person, present-tense narration wrings emotion at every opportunity.Resolution comes fairly easily, as French homework, weekly family outings at a local buffet and "intervention" shopping trips with Delia and her new pal combine with Calli's admitting her wrong and making an effort to make things right.

This story about an average girl who rises to some unusual challenges in steady fashion makes forcomfortable middle-of-the-road fare. (Fiction. 12-16)

Kirkus Reviews