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When high school basketball star Chelsea Keyes injures her hip during senior year, everything changes. Unable to play the game, she's forced to watch from the sidelines as a promising season goes sour. As if that isn't bad enough, she feels like she's been benched from her life - she can't bring herself to so much as look at a basketball, her dad barely talks to her anymore, and her brother won't get off her case. No one seems to understand just how much she's lost.

To help them all reconnect, Chelsea's dad books a three-week family vacation at a lake resort in Minnesota. Chelsea's shocked when she finds out he's signed her up for a boot camp to help her regain some of the strength she's lost since her accident. She's even more shocked when she sees her instructor - 19-year-old Clint Morgan is hot in a way that almost makes Chelsea forget she's got the perfect boyfriend back home in Missouri. Almost. Only the more time she spends with Clint, the more she wonders about Gabe, the guy she's been going out with since junior year. How is it that she feels so much more understood by a guy she barely knows than by the one who should actually know her best? And does her summer fling matter enough to risk the good thing she's got going with Gabe?

As Chelsea battles to rediscover herself, her passions, and her strength, she has to decide what really matters to her. And who. Before she ends up losing everything, not to mention everyone, she cares about.

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Bow Farm, a ramshackle spread on the Mattole River in California's Humboldt County, collects lost souls. And secrets. Shunning their pasts, its residents have come together to form something new, something more than a community, but not quite a family. At least not in any conventional sense. There's Len, a quiet logger, who's fiercely devoted to his brain dead wife; Ruthie, an obese cook, whose botched suicide brought her to the farm; Melody, who shuns her high brow background to live off the land; Johnny Appleseed, whose frequent comings and goings suit his constant wanderlust; and Willow, a skilled weaver, who hides from her demons in a yurt at the edge of the property. Despite variant pasts, each member of the group depends on the others, takes care of the others, and helps make the farm a refuge for them all.

No one's prepared for a disturbance in the peace, especially one that comes in the form of an angry 3-year-old. Len's never met his nephew, doubts he can properly care for the child, but brings him home anyway. He's determined to give the boy, whose mother's been incarcerated for drug dealing, a little stability. It doesn't take long, however, for one thing to become perfectly clear: Len's got too much on his plate already to keep track of squirmy, sullen Wrecker. The others on the farm, none of whom are exactly the greatest candidates for parenthood, agree to look after the child until an adoptive family can be found. They expect to feed Wrecker, clothe him, read him stories, keep him out of trouble - what they don't expect is to fall in love with him. But they do. And the fierceness of that emotion changes everything at Bow Farm.

As Wrecker grows up, the odd little family gathers around the boy, experiencing the joys and hardships of parenting a child haunted by a past he doesn't even remember. When it comes time to tell Wrecker the truth about his early life, his ex-con birth mother, and a whole lot of other details they've skipped over, the group fears his reaction. Will Wrecker's anger take away the one thing, the one person, who succeeded in making them a family? And, if he leaves, what will become of the rest of them? What will happen to Bow Farm, the place that has sheltered them all?

Wrecker, Summer Wood's second novel, grabbed me from the first word. Or maybe it was the plot summary that did it for me. I may have mentioned (only about a million times) that, as an adoptive mother, I have a bit of a weakness for adoption stories in all their various forms. This one's an unconventional tale, filled with unconventional characters, set in an unconventional time (Northern California - 1965), all of which give it a quirky charm. The writing kept me engaged, startling me at times with its humor and heart. Even though the story wanders a bit and doesn't have quite the richness I wanted it to have, I enjoyed it. Its message rings clear and true: parenthood is less about bringing children into the world and more about helping them through it. Family is less about blood and more about benevolence. As someone who knows a little something about unconventional families, I have to agree.

(Readalikes: Reminded me a tiny bit of Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda)

Grade: B-

If this were a movie, it would be rated: R for strong language, some sexual content, and depictions of illegal drug use.

To the FTC, with love: I received a finished copy of Wrecker from the generous folks at TLC Book Tours, for whom this review was written.

(Image from Indiebound)

Marisa Moreno's parents came to The United States to make a better life for themselves. So, why won't they let her do the same? Sure, they want her to graduate from high school, but only if it doesn't interfere with cooking meals for her gruff Papi, babysitting her niece, or working enough hours at Kroger to help pay the family's bills. Marisa knows her duties to la familia come first, but she also knows she's smart enough to really make something of herself. Marisa's parents want her to stay in the barrio, marry a neighborhood boy, have babies, and work at some dead-end job like a good little Mexican girl. Marisa wants more. So much more.

When Marisa's favorite teacher urges her to apply to a competitve engineering program at the University of Texas, Marisa longs to do it. But just the thought of fleeing Houston fills her with paralyzing guilt. How will her Mami and Papi afford rent without Marisa's paycheck? Who will cook Papi's meals? If Tia Marisa isn't around, who will watch little Anita, soothe her when her parents fight, keep her safe from her drug-dealing father's vicious temper? And what of sweet, gorgeous Alan Peralta, who's finally showing some interest in her? Can she leave all of it behind? Just for some fancy science program? As much as Marisa wants to follow her own dreams, she knows it's impossible.

As things at home become more and more impossible, Marisa faces the most difficult choice of her life: Does she give up on her own future to make everyone else happy, like she's always done in the past? Or does she fight for her dreams, no matter what the cost? Trapped by all that's expected of her, Marisa will be forced to choose between tradition and progress, cultural expectations and personal ambition, familial obligations and her own fulfillment. Can she find a way to make her dreams come true without losing everything in the process? Or is she doomed to eke out a hard scrabble life in a cockroach-infested tenement building, just like her parents?

What Can't Wait, a debut novel by Texas native Ashley Hope Perez, is an immigrant story with bite. It's familiar, touching on all the usual conflicts, but surprising in its unflinching honesty. I found the novel both compelling and affecting, even though I would have liked a whole lot more originality from it. Still, it's refreshing to see modern Mexican-American culture being explored in teen lit, especially when it comes from a writer like Perez, who uses her own experience to make her story realistic, relevant and, most of all, relatable to readers of every background. While What Can't Wait didn't blow me away, it has placed Perez firmly on my radar. You better believe I'll be keeping my eye on this intriguing literary lady.

(Readalikes: I guess I don't read many stories about Mexican-American teenagers. Any ideas here?)

Grade: B-

To the FTC, with love: I received a finished copy of What Can't Wait from the generous folks at Carolrhoda LAB. Thank you!