SATA
ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: KYRA, JUST FOR TODAY
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.sarazarr.com/
CITY: Salt Lake City
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 388
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born October 3, 1970, in Cleveland, OH; married Gordon Hultberg.
EDUCATION:San Francisco State University, B.A., 1994.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. Worked in the commercial printing industry and as a church secretary; host and producer of This Creative Life (podcast), 2012-15; Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, WA, low-residency creative writing MFA program faculty, beginning 2020; Lesley University, Cambridge, MA, creative writing MFA faculty. Judge for the National Book Award, 2010; presenter at schools, conferences, and festivals.
AVOCATIONS:Listening to music, cooking, blogging, going out to lunch.
AWARDS:First place, Utah Arts Council Original Writing Competition, 2003; National Book Award finalist, National Book Foundation, International Reading Association Honor Book selection, Best Book for Young Adults designation and Quick Picks for Reluctant Young-Adult Readers designation, both American Library Association (ALA), and Books for the Teen Age selection, New York Public Library, all 2007, all for Story of a Girl; ALA Best Book for Young Adults designation, Books for the Teen Age selection, and Utah Book Award finalist, all 2008, all for Sweethearts; ALA Best Book for Young Adults designation, and Utah Book Award, both 2009, both for Once Was Lost; ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults designation, Choices selection, Cooperative Children’s Book Center, and Utah Book Award, all 2012, all for How to Save a Life; MacDowell Colony fellowship, 2014; ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults designation and ALA Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners designation, both 2014, both for The Lucy Variations; ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers designation, 2015, for Roomies.
RELIGION: “Christian humanist.”WRITINGS
Contributor to books and anthologies. Contributor to periodicals, including Gather, Hunger Mountain, Image, Relief Journal, and Response.
Story of a Girl was adapted as a television movie, Lifetime Television, 2017.
SIDELIGHTS
Sara Zarr is the author of a number of highly regarded young-adult novels, among them the National Book Award finalist Story of a Girl, The Lucy Variations, Gem and Dixie, and Goodbye from Nowhere. She made her debut for middle graders with A Song Called Home. Zarr’s novels, which often tackle controversial and sensitive issues, have earned praise for their sympathetic and well-developed characters, engaging prose, and realistic narratives. She remarked in a Guardian interview with Cat Clarke that “the complexity of human relationships and the complicated connections we make (or fail to make) is what excites or confounds me in real life, and therefore that’s what excites or confounds me about writing.”
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Zarr grew up in San Francisco, California, in a family with a creative bent: Her parents met while attending music school, and her maternal grandfather worked as a journalist. Her family later moved to nearby Pacifica, an insular, fog-shrouded bedroom community along the coast that, compared to San Francisco, felt like “a different universe when you’re a teen with no car,” as the author recalled to Cynsations interviewer Cynthia Leitich Smith.
Once in high school, Zarr developed an interest in young-adult literature, finding particular inspiration in Robert Cormier’s classic novel The Chocolate War, a bleak look at a high-school freshman who suffers at the hands of both the administration and his classmates after he takes an uncompromising and unpopular stand against his school’s annual candy sale. As she remarked in her Cynsations interview, “I was one of those readers who found solace in his unflinching look at the potential for evil, and the feeling of hopelessness that so often accompanies that transition from childhood into adulthood, the no-man’s land adolescence can feel like.”
Zarr earned her bachelor’s degree at San Francisco State University, then started writing. Although she completed three novels over the next several years, none sold. Jobless, agentless, and living in Salt Lake City, Utah, by 2002, she questioned whether she should even continue pursuing a literary career. During a weeklong writing workshop, however, Zarr began the manuscript that would become her first published novel, Story of a Girl.
Set in the small California town of Pacifica, Story of a Girl focuses on Deanna Lambert, a strong-willed but sensitive high schooler who has just finished her sophomore year. Three years earlier, Deanna’s father had discovered her having sex in the back seat of a car with seventeen-year-old Tommy Webber. The episode dramatically altered Deanna’s life, causing her reputation to suffer at school and severely damaging her relationship with her dad, who now barely acknowledges her. Feeling trapped in her tense, claustrophobic home and receiving little support from her harried mother, the teen takes a summer job at a local pizza joint, hoping to earn enough money to rent a place with her older brother. On her first day, however, Deanna is shocked to learn that one of her coworkers is none other than Tommy, whose confident manner and dangerous good looks stir her memories of their complicated past.
Story of a Girl was described as “a heartbreaking look at how a teenager can be defined by one mistake, and how it shapes her sense of self-worth” by School Library Journal reviewer Stephanie L. Petruso. “For me,” Zarr commented to Papazian, “the main conflict in that story is between Deanna and herself, and then between Deanna and her father. The sex incident was really just one way to help that happen.”
Zarr followed her successful debut with Sweethearts, a “haunting and ultimately hopeful novel,” according to a contributor in Kirkus Reviews. Inspired by the author’s emotional reunion with a childhood friend, the novel depicts the powerful relationship between two teens who share a frightening secret. On her seventeenth birthday, Jenna Vaughn, a popular high-school senior, receives a mysterious note addressed to Jennifer Harris. The note is a sad reminder of her elementary school days, when she was bullied and ostracized by her peers, save for one boy, fellow outcast Cameron Quick. In the eight years since she learned that Cameron moved away and then died in a freak accident, Jenna has remade herself, losing weight and cultivating a new persona, though she has never forgotten the scrawny youngster who befriended her when no one else would, nor the terrible day when Cameron’s abusive father tormented them for his own pleasure, a story she has kept to herself.
Like its predecessor, Sweethearts proved immensely popular with reviewers. A number of critics complimented Zarr’s suspenseful narrative, which travels back and forth between Jenna and Cameron’s childhood and the present day. “Flashbacks to a horrifying episode with Cameron’s father are revealed slowly and carefully, filling readers with a sense of dread,” a contributor in Publishers Weekly reported, and Leah Krippner declared in School Library Journal that the author’s “sophisticated writing style … is wonderful” in its use of detail. Other reviewers applauded Zarr’s skillful presentation of Jenna and Cameron’s unique friendship. In Horn Book, Claire E. Gross noted that their “bond never becomes anything so simple or transient as a romance, a line Zarr treads exceedingly well,” and Krippner remarked that the protagonists “are well drawn and believable.”
In Once Was Lost, Zarr offers what Voice of Youth Advocates contributor Amy Wyckoff described as a “beautifully crafted novel about a teen coping with a loss of faith.” The work is based in part on the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping, in which a fourteen-year-old girl was abducted from her Salt Lake City home in 2002, triggering a massive search. In Once Was Lost, Zarr introduces fifteen-year-old Samara “Sam” Taylor, a pastor’s daughter who is struggling with feelings of hopelessness and despair after her mother, an alcoholic, is sent to rehab. Unable to reach out to her dad, who buries himself in his work, Sam starts to doubt the existence of God when thirteen-year-old Jody Shaw, a member of her father’s congregation, disappears without a trace. As the shocked community begins searching for the missing girl, Sam enters a relationship with Nick, Jody’s older brother, who is suspected in the case along with several others in their dusty small town.
“Beyond delivering a gripping story,” a contributor noted in Publishers Weekly, in Once Was Lost the author displays “a knack for exposing human weakness in the ordinary.” According to Gross, Zarr “navigates the ripped-from-the-headlines topic with empathy and delicacy, offering a believable portrait of small-town dynamics while creating deftly realized characters.” As Faith Brautigam observed in School Library Journal, the story’s “multilayered exploration of the intersection of the spiritual life and imperfect people features suspense and packs an emotional wallop.”
How to Save a Life centers on the relationship between two vastly different teens. High-school senior Jill MacSweeny is still grieving the recent death of her father when her mom announces plans to adopt a baby. Believing that the woman is simply trying to fill the emotional void in her life, Jill grows even angrier when she learns that the birth mother, Mandy Kalinowski, will move into the MacSweeny’s home until the baby is born. Unknown to both Jill and her mother, Mandy harbors a wealth of secrets and views the new living arrangements as a welcome escape from her unhappy life.
“Told from alternating perspectives, the teens’ compelling stories unfold with heart-wrenching angst,” School Library Journal critic Nora G. Murphy reported in appraising How to Save a Life, and Katherine Flinn similarly noted in Voice of Youth Advocates that “Zarr masterfully gives each girl a distinctive voice, allowing the reader to empathize with both Jill’s self-destructive rage and Mandy’s delusional fantasies.” According to Booklist contributor Frances Bradburn, How to Save a Life “is a rich tapestry of love and survival that will resonate with even the most cynical readers.”
In The Lucy Variations, Zarr provides “a satisfying coming-of-age story and a thoughtful treatise on art, identity, and personal fulfillment,” according to Horn Book contributor Jessica Tackett. Following a betrayal by members of her wealthy and privileged family, sixteen-year-old old Lucy Beck-Moreau abandons her blossoming career as a concert pianist. Free of the pressure to perform solely for the satisfaction of others, in particular her controlling grandfather, Lucy nonetheless feels rudderless and worries about her future. When her younger brother, himself a promising musician, begins taking lessons from Will, an enthusiastic new piano teacher, Lucy realizes that she misses the simple joy of playing. With encouragement from Will, whose motives are not entirely altruistic, Lucy finds the courage to redefine her musical identity.
The Lucy Variations earned a strong critical reception. “Zarr vividly develops the title character, illuminating Lucy’s teenage insecurities, her close and fractious friendships and the coming-of-age realization that she can pursue her dreams on her own terms,” Vivien Schweitzer observed in the New York Times Book Review. The critic added, “An independent young woman, she should win teenage hearts as a heroine who refuses to be used as a pawn to fulfill anyone else’s need for glory or submit to a life plan not of her own making.” Ann Kelley in Booklist noted that the author “really, truly gets inside her characters’ minds and shows us what makes them complex human beings,” and a Publishers Weekly contributor believed that Lucy’s “journey of self-discovery will strike a profound chord with readers.”
Coauthored with Tara Altebrando, the young-adult novel Roomies is told in the alternating voices of recent high-school graduates Elizabeth (EB) Owens and Lauren Cole. After learning they will be college roommates at Berkeley, EB and Lauren begin corresponding via e-mail. For Jersey girl EB, college represents an opportunity to distance herself from her flighty single mother and to reconnect with her dad, who moved to California after coming out as a gay man. Lauren, born and raised in San Francisco, worries that her absence will affect her financially strapped parents and her five younger siblings. As the summer progresses, the girls “find themselves becoming emotionally vested in each other to the point that they have a tangible effect on each other’s lives without ever having met,” Victoria Vogel observed in Voice of Youth Advocates.
A writer in Kirkus Reviews applauded Roomies, stating that the book’s “deeply embedded theme of transition will have tremendous appeal for any teenager coping with change.” According to a contributor in Publishers Weekly, Zarr and Altebrando “give the story big doses of humor, sensitivity, and sweetness, along with a complex and realistic cast.” Frances Bradburn, writing in Booklist, described the work as “authentic and drama filled.” School Library Journal reviewer Mahnaz Dar explained that the dual narrative “lends a tone of authenticity to the story.”
In Gem and Dixie, Zarr “movingly explores the effects of neglect on two vulnerable girls relearning how to trust,” observed a contributor in Publishers Weekly. Cautious and subdued, seventeen-year-old Gem has long served as the caretaker of her flirtatious fourteen-year-old sister, Dixie; the girls’ father abandoned them years earlier, and their mother struggles with addictions to drugs and alcohol. When their dad unexpectedly returns and further disrupts their lives, the siblings discover that he has hidden away a backpack containing thousands of dollars. Desperate to escape their circumstances, Gem and Dixie take his money and go on the run, where they come to some difficult realizations about their feelings for one another and their parents.
As with her other works, Zarr earned plaudits for Gem and Dixie. “Tackling trust, honesty, faith and hope, this novel is sure to strike a chord with readers coming from similar situations,” Erin A. Holt remarked in BookPage. “In addition to the powerful portrayal of poverty, Zarr teases out a moving story of sisters navigating their relationship,” Sarah Hunter commented in Booklist. A writer in Kirkus Reviews noted that “Gem’s prickly, agonizingly real internal monologues quickly bring readers into her corner, and her messy, layered interactions with Dixie are heart-wrenching.”
In 2020 Zarr published the young-adult novel Goodbye from Nowhere. Kyle values the normalcy in his family despite a few odd relatives. However, his life takes an unexpected dive when he discovers that his mother is having an affair. Both of his parents encourage him not to tell his sisters, girlfriend, and other relatives. He starts skipping class, avoiding his girlfriend, abandons his baseball team, and shuts down emotionally. He reaches out to his asexual cousin, Emily, as he looks for some comfort in life. A contributor to Publishers Weekly stated: “A moving slice of realism, this book shows how a family crisis impacts many aspects of one boy’s life.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor suggested that “some readers may resonate with Kyle’s difficulty at navigating frustration with his parents and loneliness within his own family.”
Zarr turns to nonfiction to inspire teens to be artistic in Courageous Creativity: Advice and Encouragement for the Creative Life. Zarr’s road map focuses on how to execute projects from inception to completion. The topics covered include conceiving of ideas, setting up a space to be creative, managing time, and paying attention throughout the process. Furthermore, Zarr addresses the challenges that might arise, including how to handle failure, questions, criticism, and procrastination. “The book combines you-can-do-it cheerleading with straight talk about sitting down and getting the work done,” according to a Kirkus Reviews writer. The same critic dubbed Courageous Creativity “inspiring and honest.” School Library Journal reviewer V. Lynn Christiansen took note of the accessibility of the book and recommended it as “a good title to have in school or public library collections to inspire young creatives, especially young writers.”
In Zarr’s middle-grade debut, A Song Called Home, Lou’s world alters when she has to move from the city to the suburbs when her mom remarries. Lou yearns for someone to talk to about all of these changes, but her teenage sister Casey is too involved with her boyfriend and her best friend, Beth, no longer lives close. When a guitar and an unsigned card are left for her on her eleventh birthday, the fifth-grader suspects they are from her father. An alcoholic, her dad has not been very involved in her life, but Lou suspects learning to play the guitar will compel him to reappear. Feeling little control in her life and without anyone to turn to, Lou begins acting out as she copes with the stress of her move and her sadness about her father.
“All the characters are flawed but fully realized,” remarked Booklist critic Sharon Rawlins. Overall, Rawlins found A Song Called Home “heartwarming, uplifting, and wonderfully real.” A Kirkus Reviews writer echoed these sentiments, calling the middle-grade novel “a tender, honest, and beautifully written story about family, faith, and friendship.” In a Publishers Weekly interview with Lynda Brill Comerford, Zarr discussed what she hopes readers will take away from the book: “There’s something there for kids who have gone through the breakup of a family or are becoming a part of a blended family or are feeling helpless over unwanted change. I hope readers can see that over time, you can adjust to change by meeting new people, making new friends, and giving people second chances.”
[open new]Zarr covers the difficult topic of alcohol abuse within a family in her next middle-grade novel, Kyra, Just for Today. In the San Francisco suburb of Pacifica, thirteen-year-old Kyra lives with her mother, who has been sober for five years and operates her own housecleaning business. Kyra helps out around holidays, skipping school with Mom’s permission, and also makes her mother’s meals and keeps their home tidy. Kyra has enough to worry about at school, outgrowing her peers in size and worrying about her closest friendship, so when Mom starts coming home late and turning unreliable, she tries to ignore the problem. Keeping quiet at her weekly meetings for children of alcoholics does no good, so ultimately Kyra must confront her mother.
A Kirkus Reviews writer found Kyra, Just for Today to be insightful, enlightening, and “all the more powerful” for Kyra’s first-person narration, which reveals the full range of her emotional response to the situation, including guilt, resentment, confusion, and anger. Hailing the novel as “authentic and heartbreaking but hopeful,” the reviewer concluded, “For anyone affected by an alcoholic family member, this story will resonate with searing truth.”[close new]
Although her protagonists deal with thorny issues, Zarr views her young-adult novels as, ultimately, optimistic in tone. As the author remarked in a Deseret News interview with Emily Ellsworth, her goal is to “write the characters as full and authentic people as well as I can. And, I hope, that my world view comes through, too. It’s a view that’s hopeful. That life is worth doing thoughtfully and as joyfully as possible, and human connections are worth having, even when they are far from perfect.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 1, 2007, Krista Hutley, review of Story of a Girl, p. 85; January 1, 2008, Debbie Carton, review of Sweethearts, p. 79; November 15, 2009, Ilene Cooper, review of Once Was Lost, p. 44; November 1, 2011, Frances Bradburn, review of How to Save a Life, p. 60; March 1, 2013, Ann Kelley, review of The Lucy Variations, p. 58; August 1, 2013, Frances Bradburn, review of Roomies, p. 81; December 15, 2016, Sarah Hunter, review of Gem and Dixie, p. 46; February 15, 2022, Sharon Rawlins, review of A Song Called Home, p. 67.
BookPage, April 1, 2017, Erin A. Holt, review of Gem and Dixie, p. 27.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, May 1, 2007, Karen Coats, review of Story of a Girl, p. 392; February 1, 2008, Deborah Stevenson, review of Sweethearts, p. 272; January 1, 2010, Deborah Stevenson, review of Once Was Lost, p. 222.
Horn Book, May 1, 2008, Claire E. Gross, review of Sweethearts, p. 332; January 1, 2010, Claire E. Gross, review of Once Was Lost, p. 97; May 1, 2013, Jessica Tackett, review of The Lucy Variations, p. 101.
Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2006, review of Story of a Girl, p. 1275; December 15, 2007, review of Sweethearts; September 1, 2009, review of Once Was Lost; November 1, 2011, review of How to Save a Life; November 1, 2013, review of Roomies; February 1, 2017, review of Gem and Dixie; February 15, 2020, review of Goodbye from Nowhere; August 1, 2020, review of Courageous Creativity: Advice and Encouragement for the Creative Life; December 15, 2021, review of A Song Called Home; January 1, 2024, review of Kyra, Just for Today.
Kliatt, January 1, 2007, Janis Flint-Ferguson, review of Story of a Girl, p. 19; March 1, 2008, Ashleigh Larsen, review of Sweethearts, p. 22.
New York Times Book Review, February 17, 2008, Julie Just, review of Sweethearts, p. 17; May 10, 2013, Vivien Schweitzer, review of The Lucy Variations, p. 22.
Publishers Weekly, January 29, 2007, review of Story of a Girl, p. 73; December 24, 2007, review of Sweethearts, p. 57; August 17, 2009, review of Once Was Lost, p. 64; October 24, 2011, review of How to Save a Life, p. 55; March 11, 2013, review of The Lucy Variations, p. 68; October 7, 2013, review of Roomies, p. 55; February 6, 2017, review of Gem and Dixie, p. 70; February 17, 2020, review of Goodbye from Nowhere, p. 201.
School Library Journal, January 1, 2007, Rick Margolis, author interview, p. 34, and Stephanie L. Petruso, review of Story of a Girl, p. 143; April 1, 2008, Leah Krippner, review of Sweethearts, p. 154; November 1, 2009, Faith Brautigam, review of Once Was Lost, p. 126; December 1, 2011, Nora G. Murphy, review of How to Save a Life, p. 136; April 1, 2013, Mahnaz Dar, review of The Lucy Variations, p. 175; December 1, 2013, Colleen S. Banick, review of Roomies, p. 137; January 1, 2017, Mahnaz Dar, review of Gem and Dixie, p. 107; April 1, 2020, Susannah Goldstein, review of Goodbye from Nowhere, p. 144; October, 2020, V. Lynn Christiansen, review of Courageous Creativity, p. 101.
Voice of Youth Advocates, February 1, 2007, Florence H. Munat, review of Story of a Girl, p. 536; April 1, 2008, Kathleen Beck, review of Sweethearts, p. 57; February 1, 2010, Amy Wyckoff, review of Once Was Lost, p. 502; December 1, 2011, Katherine Flinn, review of How to Save a Life, p. 504; June 1, 2013, Jane Van Wiemoldy, review of The Lucy Variations, p. 71; December 1, 2013, Victoria Vogel, review of Roomies, p. 69.
ONLINE
BookPage, http://www.bookpage.com/ (August 15, 2010), Angela Leeper, review of Once Was Lost.
Cynsations, http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/ (September 5, 2006), Cynthia Leitich Smith, author interview; (October 15, 2009), Cynthia Leitich Smith, author interview.
Deseret News, https://www.deseretnews.com/ (October 15, 2011), Emily Ellsworth, author interview.
Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/ (October 19, 2012), Cat Clarke, author interview.
National Book Foundation website, http://www.nationalbook.org/ (May 1, 2011), Rita Williams-Garcia, “2007 National Book Award Young People’s Literature Finalist Interview with Sara Zarr.”
Publishers Weekly, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (February 17, 2022), Lynda Brill Comerford, author interview.
Sara Zarr website, http://www.sarazarr.com (June 3, 2024).
Sojourners, http://blog.sojo.net/ (May 17, 2010), Julie Polter, author interview.
Teenreads, http://www.teenreads.com/ (January 1, 2011), Chris Shanley-Dillman, author interview.
YA Interrobang, http://www.yainterrobang.com/ (January 26, 2015), Lindsay Lackey, “Why I Love YA: Sara Zarr,” author interview.
Sara Zarr
USA flag (b.1970)
Sara Zarr was born in Cleveland, grew up in San Francisco and Pacifica, CA, and now lives in Salt Lake City with her husband and various small pets. After a short and unrewarding career in the commercial printing industry, Sara wrote her first young adult nove - a sad family drama about a girl and her guitar. Though the book got her an agent, editors described it in their rejections as "too depressing," "too quiet," and other variations of "not good."
Sara's love of young adult literature and competitive nature kept her writing. Nine years, three completed novels, and one agent change later, Story of a Girl sold to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in 2005. Another family drama, this one set in Pacifica, Story of a Girl has received advanced praise from acclaimed authors such as Chris Crutcher, John Green, and Mary Pearson. She is currently working on her second young adult novel for Little, Brown.
In her spare time, Sara enjoys indulging in time-wasting habits such as playing online poker, reading blogs, and watching reality TV.
Genres: Children's Fiction, Young Adult Fiction
New and upcoming books
March 2024
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Kyra, Just for Today
Novels
Story of a Girl (2007)
Sweethearts (2008)
Once Was Lost (2009)
aka What We Lost
How to Save a Life (2011)
The Lucy Variations (2013)
Roomies (2013) (with Tara Altebrando)
Gem & Dixie (2017)
Goodbye from Nowhere (2020)
A Song Called Home (2022)
Kyra, Just for Today (2024)
Non fiction hide
Courageous Creativity (2020)
This Creative Life (2022)
Sara Zarr is the acclaimed author of nine novels and two works of nonfiction. She’s a National Book Award finalist and two-time Utah Book Award winner. Her books have been variously named to annual best books lists of the American Library Association, Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, School Library Journal, the Guardian, the International Reading Association, the New York Public Library and Los Angeles Public Library, and have been translated into many languages. She has served as a judge for the National Book Award.
Sara has written essays, creative nonfiction, and short fiction for Image, Hunger Mountain online, Response, Gather, and Relief Journal as well as for several anthologies, and is a MacDowell Fellow (2014). Her first book, Story of a Girl, was made into a 2017 television movie directed by Kyra Sedgwick. She divides her time between Utah and California and is currently on the MFA faculty at Lesley University.
Zarr, Sara KYRA, JUST FOR TODAY Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (Children's None) $19.99 3, 5 ISBN: 9780063045132
A middle-grade novel showing how children pay the price of living in families where alcohol is abused.
Thirteen-year-old Kyra lives with her mother in Pacifica, a coastal suburb south of San Francisco. Mom, who's in recovery from alcoholism and has been sober for more than five years, has a house-cleaning business. Kyra often helps her out around the holidays--even skipping school (with her mom's permission) so she can pick up more jobs. Kyra also makes her mother breakfast, packs her lunch and snacks, tidies the house, and prepares dinner--in addition to negotiating her self-consciousness at school over being "taller and bigger than most of the other seventh-grade girls" and worrying that her best friend is drifting away. When Mom starts coming home late and acting erratically, Kyra doesn't want to think about why or even share her worries at the support group for children of alcoholics that she attends weekly. Eventually, though, she's forced to confront both her mother's behavior and the effect it's had over the years. Informative and validating, this story is all the more powerful for Kyra's first-person narration, which underscores her love for her mother and her desire to take care of her, as well as her confusion as she confronts feelings of guilt, resentment, and anger. For anyone affected by an alcoholic family member, this story will resonate with searing truth. Most characters read white.
Authentic and heartbreaking but hopeful. (author's note) (Fiction. 9-13)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Zarr, Sara: KYRA, JUST FOR TODAY." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Jan. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A777736864/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=786edab0. Accessed 29 Mar. 2024.