Sent away to live with her Aunt for a year while her father
was in an alcohol recovery program, Kira is finally coming back home. Dad has been discharged and as Kira comes
back, she hopes to recover the way things used to be (without the drinking of
course).
But so much has changed. Her friends have grown distant and moved
on. Her former boyfriend is now dating
one of her former friends. And Dad,
while no longer drinking, surrounds himself with his fellow recoverees, and Kira feels shut out. He’s even invited them to come live with
him, which Kira resents. All of this is aggravated by Kira's unresolved hurt and anger at her father. To articulate her problems, Kira
drafts up her own “twelve steps,” which list out the changes that she feels will help her
recover the (normal) past. Of course, it
is not that simple.
Entertaining read but generally predictable and formulaic. There are some nice characters like her
father’s friends, but most of the roles are overly familiar tropes (the
not-so-nice ex-, the sweet boy she always should have loved, the ineffectual
Dad, etc.). It was a pleasant read but
didn’t add much to the genre. That said, what it did do well is address the
issue of the impact of addiction on family.
Not just through Kira and her Dad, but also through the other recoverees,
Penn effectively discusses the anger and grief of losing a
family member to addiction.
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