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Summary
Summary
Three women. Three generations. Three secrets. A Stonewall Honor Book! Katie's life is falling apart: her best friend thinks she's a freak, her mother, Caroline, controls every aspect of her life, and her estranged grandmother, Mary, appears as if out of nowhere. Mary has dementia and needs lots of care, and when Katie starts putting together Mary's life story, secrets and lies are uncovered: Mary's illegitimate baby, her zest for life and freedom and men; the way she lived her life to the full yet suffered huge sacrifices along the way. As the relationship between Mary and Caroline is explored, Katie begins to understand her own mother's behavior, and from that insight, the terrors about her sexuality, her future, and her younger brother are all put into perspective. Funny, sad, honest, and wise, this powerful multigenerational novel from international bestseller Jenny Downham celebrates life like no book before.
Author Notes
Jenny Downham is a British novelist born in 1964. Her first career was as an actress. During that time she worked various jobs, door to door saleswoman, mushroom farm worker, etc. Writing was her creative outlet. In 2003 she entered the London Writer's Competition and won first prize. By 2005 her first novel was published. Her books include Before I Die, Now is Good, You Against Me, and Unbecoming.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Downham (You Against Me) examines the family battles and internal conflicts of three generations of women in this novel about a household in crisis. Seventeen-year-old Katie's life takes an unexpected turn when her estranged grandmother Mary, diagnosed with Alzheimer's, moves into their small apartment. While Katie's mother tries to find another place for Mary to stay, Katie is drawn to the elderly stranger, a woman tormented by a past she can't reliably remember. Even though Katie already has her share of responsibilities, trying to meet her mother's high standards and looking after her disabled brother, she offers to become Mary's caretaker. She is determined to unlock secrets about Mary's history but doesn't realize how her own past is intertwined with her grandmother's. Alternating between Katie's and Mary's point of view, Downham shows extraordinary skill in expressing the complex psychologies of two very different women while exploring how people are shaped by events, unrealized dreams, and restrictions. The more answers Katie finds, the more she realizes that she will have to become someone new in order to be true to herself. Ages 14-up. Agent: Catherine Clarke, Felicity Bryan Associates. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Until the hospital called, asking her and her mum and younger brother to come pick up elderly Mary, who is suffering from dementia, seventeen-year-old Katie didnt even know she had a grandmother. As Katie assumes partial responsibility for Marys care, she uncovers a web of family secrets. While learning more about both her grandmothers and mothers pasts, Katie also struggles with her own secret: she is pretty certain she is gay and worries that claiming that identity will cause her to lose the one close friend she has. Told from a limited third-person perspective that follows Katies and Marys stories, Downhams third novel (Before I Die, rev. 11/07; You Against Me, rev. 11/11) offers implicit commentary on the historical and contemporary constraints on young womens lives and their freedom to love with abandon. As it does so, Downham constructs and contrasts two fully rounded characters who are both, as the novel concludes, works in progress. amy pattee (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Katie meets her grandmother Mary for the first time when the hospital calls. It's an understatement to say that Katie's mother, Caroline, has a tense relationship with Mary, and she's none too pleased to have to care for the woman, who's slipping into dementia. Katie, however, is enchanted, and she compassionately endeavors to help Mary remember as much as possible. In dredging up the past, however, Katie learns painful secrets about her mother, secrets that strain their already rocky relationship. But learning about her family helps Katie feel brave enough to share her own secret that she's gay not only with her mother but with the whole world. The three women at the heart of the story Katie, Caroline, and Mary are all richly detailed and well developed, and Downham slowly, tantalizingly unspools each of their stories. Though the passages focusing on Mary's and Caroline's struggles with parenting and marriage might not resonate with teens, Katie's brave self-discovery will likely ring true, and Downham's lyrical meditation on the nature of memory will be deeply thought-provoking. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Downham's gotten high praise for her last two books, Before I Die (2007) and You against Me (2011). Expect her latest to have just as rosy a reception.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2015 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-What kind of pain can love survive? How late is too late to learn the truth? When 17-year-old Katie's estranged grandmother shows up on their doorstep, alone and suffering from dementia, Katie's tightly wound mother is enraged. Instantly drawn to the confused but fascinating old woman, who seems to embody a spirit of personal freedom and love that the teen has been longing for, Katie starts recording pieces of her grandmother's story, both to help her remember and to get to the bottom of what really happened between her mother and grandmother. It turns out all three women are harboring some pretty heavy secrets. Unveiling the narrative in bits and pieces and hopping through time periods, Downham paints a moving picture of three generations of women who haven't felt listened to or understood, who have felt confined by their choices, and who have suffered the consequences of trying to forge a new path. Katie's plotline (she is coming to terms with her growing attraction to girls) is wrapped up a little too nicely, but the two older women's stories, both past and present, are subtle and heartbreaking. The grandmother, whose slipping hold on her memories is portrayed with compassion and gentle humor, is especially well drawn. This would be a great title for teens and adults to read and discuss together. VERDICT A strong choice for thoughtful readers.-Beth McIntyre, Madison Public Library, WI © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Guardian Review
Three generations of women confront difficult situations in this rich, complex and thoughtful novel In this long, thoughtful novel, Jenny Downham presents the archetypal trio of maiden, mother and crone in a very modern situation. Before the book begins, Katie, the teenage heroine, has impulsively kissed her best friend, Esme. Now she faces difficult questions about her sexuality and homophobic taunting from Esme's new friends. They refuse to let the incident go, even when Katie joins them in laughing at Simona, another girl at school who is known to be gay. Oblivious to all this, Katie's mother, Caroline, pushes her to excel at school and to look after her younger brother, Chris, who has special needs. Stressed and unhappy, Caroline is near breaking point when, at the start of the book, her estranged mother, Mary, suddenly reappears. Mary has dementia and her partner, Jack, has just died, leaving her with no possible carer -- except Caroline. But this is not a gloomy book. It's a rich, complex story full of interesting relationships. From that first moment, in the hospital where Jack has just died, Katie sympathises with Mary. While Caroline spends hours on the phone desperately trying to get Mary into residential care, Katie tries to stimulate her grandmother's memory. She writes down Mary's stories, makes a wall of pictures to remind her of the past and follows her as she wanders round the neighbourhood. These wanderings are crucial to the story in two ways. The first is that Mary insists on returning, over and over again, to a particular cafe -- where Simona works. At first, Katie is embarrassed and Simona is wary, but gradually they are attracted to each other. They are also related to the central mystery: why has Mary been an absent mother and grandmother? Katie starts piecing together old stories and documents, trying to understand why her mother is so hostile to Mary. This is explored in a subtle narrative that moves between past and present, told sometimes from Mary's point of view and sometimes from Katie's. Although Katie's detective work drives the story, it is firmly anchored in the present and is, above all, a book about people. Characters are strongly developed, not defined by their labels. We share their awareness of the world through dozens of tiny details, such as Katie's hypersensitivity to the tilt of Simona's neck and Mary's longing for Jack as she misses "the heat of him". Although he dies before the book begins, Jack is vividly present. His love and care for Mary are cleverly evoked in various ways, increasing the reader's sympathy for her and providing Katie with practical hints about how to help her grandmother. Caroline is the only one who is remote and opaque. We hear her raging at social workers but never see inside her head. Slowly it becomes obvious that this is no accident: her remoteness is part of the central mystery. But the puzzle never dominates the characters. Mary's apparently random comments -- about her sister Pat's headaches, or her plastic model of Wolf Mountain -- turn out, much later, to be important clues. But at the time they are valid glimpses of her scrambled view of the world and they underpin the final revelations in a solid and satisfying way. The book closes with an idyllic snapshot of hope and happiness, but it is not The End. Puzzles may be solved, but people never stop developing. * Gillian Cross's most recent book is Shadow Cat. To order Unbecoming for [pound]11.99 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over [pound]10, online orders only. - Gillian Cross.
Kirkus Review
Three generations of a family wrestle with secrets. Katie knew nothing of a grandmother. But suddenly here one is, because the grandmother's boyfriend just died and his emergency contact was Katie's mother, Caroline. Caroline, enraged, wants to leave her mother, Mary, with social services, but despite Mary's dementia, Mary's sent home with them, to squish into the three-bedroom flat with Mum, Katie, and Katie's younger brother. Mum's smotheringly protective of her kids and now of Mary too, though coldly, without sympathy. Pain and worry seethe from events long-pastMary's unwed teen pregnancy and the unknowing Caroline's tumultuous childhood as the supposed daughter of Mary's sisterand current: Katie's fear of admitting that she likes girls. Mary's always been a glamorous, fiery sparkplug. She broke free from the repressive social mores of white 1950s England. But she's had heartbreaking losses too, some of which torment her with their emotional pain even after dementia has stolen their details. Katie and Mary walk daily to a cafe, seeking something Mary always forgets but finding, instead, a waitress who ignites Katie's own fire. The writing, fluidly moving between both Katie's and Mary's third-person perspectives, is a wonder. Downham keenly weaves together musings, revelations, confrontations, and poignancy. Her prose gets right down inside human fragility, tenderness, fury, gusto, and strengthleaving sweet, sharp images that are impossible to forget. Exceptional. (Fiction. 14 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
