Everything It Takes

by Sandi Van

Overview

Lily Landon knows college is the ticket out of her boring small town and her first step to becoming a lawyer like the ones she watches on television. To help her applications stand out, Lily joins Green for Good, her school's environmental club, and meets Fiona, a passionate activist who will do everything it takes to protect the planet. As Lily grows closer to Fiona, she realizes ""everything it takes"" may mean getting arrested, and a criminal record does not look good on college applications. How can Lily save the Earth without destroying her future?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781978595545
Publisher:	Enslow Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	12/16/2021
Series:	YA Verse Series
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.55(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

Editorial Reviews

2021-09-29
Lily joins an environmental club purely to have an extracurricular for her college applications, yet she’s soon drawn into the group’s mission—and unorthodox tactics.

Lily yearns to leave her stifling town. She knows college is both the way out and a necessary step toward becoming a lawyer, her dream since her parents’ divorce. With this goal in mind, Lily has focused so completely on her academics that she has no friends; besides which, all her previous club-joining attempts have failed. Galvanized by college recruiters’ questions about extracurricular activities, Lily reluctantly joins Green for Good. There, she quickly makes new friends—most notably with Fiona, who becomes a love interest. When the club members find industrial waste dumped in the creek behind their school, Lily must decide how far she will go to help identify the culprit. Lily’s an appealing character with a believable voice as the narrator, and the novel is told in clear, accessible free verse. The individual poems vary in length but are mostly short, moving the plot along swiftly; some episodes are resolved in the space of one or two brief poems. Most characters seem to be White; Fiona and her grandmother, who communicate using sign language, are subtly cued as Native American. The abrupt ending is jarring, leaving so many loose threads a sequel seems necessary.

An appealing blend of environmental activism and romance that will engage reluctant readers. (Verse novel. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews