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Summary
Summary
Fans of Nick Hornby, Huntley Fitzpatrick, and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl will love this smart, funny, poignant YA romance and coming-of-age story-from the boy's perspective
lake effect | n.
Theeffectofanylake,especiallytheGreatLakes,inmodifyingtheweatherinnearbyareas
It's the summer after his senior year, and driven, focused Briggs Henry is ready to leave behind his ex-girlfriend, his comically aggressive grandmother, and his parents' money troubles for Lake Michigan and its miles of sandy beaches. He's lined up a summer job working as a personal assistant and living in a gorgeous Victorian on the water-exactly the kind of house Briggs plans to buy his parents once he's a multi-millionaire. But when he arrives, his boss, the eccentric Mrs. Bosic, tells him to get dressed for her funeral. Uh . . . It's the first of many funerals they'll attend this summer-to hilarious and eye-opening effect. Add to this a new set of friends-cum-enemies-cum-friends-again, and Abigail, the mysterious girl next door on whom Briggs's charms repeatedly fail, and "the lake effect" is beginning to take on a whole new meaning.
Author Notes
Erin McCahan is a native Michigander who grew up on the beaches of Grand Haven and Macatawa. Now a resident of landlocked New Albany, Ohio, she and her husband return every summer to North Beach in South Haven, on the shores of Lake Michigan. Look for them under the red and white striped umbrella.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Eighteen-year-old Briggs Henry spends the summer after his high school graduation in South Haven, Mich., as live-in help for a strong-willed 84-year-old Serbian widow, Mrs. Bozic, in this elegant and touching coming-of-age story. Briggs is well aware of his family's high expectations for him ("We achieved. We catalogued our successes, and we never needed our hair cut") and has big plans for his own future: namely becoming a successful lawyer who never has to worry about money. His summer with Mrs. B-which includes funeral crashing, encounters with a secretive neighbor named Abigail, and revelations about his family-prompts Briggs to reexamine his goals and his definition of happiness. As chronicled by McCahan (Love and Other Foreign Words), Briggs's growth is realistically sobering, and many readers will identify with his increasing awareness of his own markers of success. Briggs's genuine relationship with Mrs. B and her words of wisdom from a life well lived are heartwarming, illustrating the ways that family can expand beyond blood. Ages 12-up. Agent: Faye Bender, the Book Group. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Ambitious Briggs Henry is spending the summer before college on Lake Michigan, working for an eccentric, elderly Serbian woman while living in her huge lakeside home. In between odd jobs and accompanying Mrs. B. to funerals, Briggs makes beach friends--including a sharp-witted girl with a chronic illness--and deals with his overbearing father. A warm and diverting coming-of-age story. (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Thanks to his impressive array of Old People Smiles, high-school graduate Briggs lands a summer job as live-in companion to elderly Mrs. Vesna Bozic. But the perks of spending the summer on Lake Michigan's North Shore beach are tempered by Mrs. B.'s penchant for attending funerals. And, thanks to an early faux pas, the local teens view Briggs as a buffoon. An intriguing girl named Abigail seems particularly eager to keep her distance. Briggs takes things in stride, however, good-naturedly accepting the eccentricities of the elderly women in his life, particularly since this summer offers Briggs a break from his father's impossibly high expectations. At the same time, Abigail's health issues add a compassionate dimension to the predictable romantic arc. While some of the humor begins to feel a bit overworked (i.e. Mrs. B.'s Serbian accent and the succession of funerals), Briggs is an enjoyable summer companion. Readers looking for a coming-of-age story from the male point of view, such as Louis Sachar's The Cardturner (2010) or Chris Lynch's The Big Game of Everything (2008) may want to try this one.--Colson, Diane Copyright 2017 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-A coming-of-age story about love, life, and creating one's own expectations. Briggs Henry is ambitious and goal-oriented and always meets his family's high standards. He graduated as one of the top students in his high school; he was president of his class and the captain of the baseball team. In the fall, Briggs will attend Michigan State University. The summer before he leaves for college, the teen takes a job as a live-in assistant for an eccentric elderly woman who lives in a large house on the shore of Lake Michigan. He slowly befriends a unique and captivating array of South Haven locals. Briggs's relationships with the various townspeople, including the beautiful and mysterious girl next door and his hilarious employer, have a profound effect. For the first time the protagonist is able to think about what life is really all about and what he, not his family, truly wants. Thought provoking-and at times hilarious-this book is filled with effective imagery that makes it a great summer read. Teens can almost hear the waves of Lake Michigan lapping against the shore in the background of the characters' dialogue. Some moderate drinking and discussion of sex make this novel more appropriate for mature readers. VERDICT Recommend this title to those who enjoyed Cara Chow's Bitter Melon, John Green's An Abundance of Katherines, and Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story.-Ellen Fitzgerald, Naperville Public Library, IL © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Future millionaire Briggs Henry has his course mapped (law degree and MBA) until an eventful summer as live-in caretaker and handyman for an elderly Serbian widow in a Lake Michigan resort town upends his plans and the bedrock assumptions they rest on. The white teen has learned to work hard and aim high, to adopt his dad's relentlessly upbeat demeanor, always remembering that "failure is not an option." (His hardworking mother mostly keeps her views to herself.) Only grim Grandma Ruth, his dad's mother, makes time to attend Briggs' baseball games (until the bottom of the third inning). Rooted in a stressful past, the family work ethic and mandatory optimism take a toll on Briggs. They've cost him his girlfriend and given him digestive troubles. Now, between chores for eccentric Mrs. B., his new employer, and escorting her to funerals, he succumbs to laid-back, resort-town life and to Abigail, an intriguing white neighbor who questions his goals and expectations of success. Life is unpredictable, she knows; events beyond our control can change everything. All we have is now. Relinquishing his grip on what lies ahead allows Briggs to appreciate this truthit's an ability he'll soon need. Observant, sarcastic, compelling, and very funny, narrator Briggs is entirely convincing andably abetted by an abundance of diverse charactersnever less than good company. This thoroughly enjoyable read is a seductive invitation to relax and let life happen. (Fiction. 12-17) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
1 WANTED: Strong eighteen-year-old guy with reliable means of transportation and reasonable handyman skills to work for eighty-four-year-old widow in relatively good, if controversial, health at her house on Lake Michigan. Candidate must enjoy swimming, sunsets, beach volleyball, girls in cowboy hats, attending funerals, blue paint, things that jiggle, flamingoes, small dogs, new words, Episcopalians, noodle kugel, losing friends, losing family, and watching his life as he knows it pretty much come to an end. Knowledge of the intestinal tract, including the role of the ileum, helpful but not required. Smokers and tourists need not apply. This wasn't the ad for the job I took last summer. But it should have been. 2 It was a couple weeks before graduation when I got the job working for Mrs. B. I'd been bussing tables, part-time, at Cascade Country Club for four years by then. I worked like a dog, but the money was good. Especially after big parties. I always went home with tips and phone numbers from women who wanted me to meet their daughters. I didn't call them, because what was I going to do? Say, "Hi, I'm the guy who schlepped your mom's dirty dishes all night. Want to go out sometime?" Plus I had a girlfriend--for a while--and, anyway, that's not how I wanted to meet someone. Still, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a huge ego feed. Moms loved me. Especially Taylor's mom, who called me a catch, which really pissed off Taylor, which kind of amused me. "Does she think I would go out with someone who isn't a catch?" she asked me one night back in April, ten days before we broke up. But, yeah, moms loved me, including my own, I'm not embarrassed to say. She bragged I had a million-dollar smile. Dad called it a $5,600-smile, which is what they paid for my braces in eighth grade. $5,651 to be exact. Dad reminded me enough times and gave me all sorts of grief, a couple years later, for chewing gum, until I finally just quit. I mean, I get it. $5,651 is a ton of money. Especially for someone else's teeth. Grandma Ruth just said chewing gum in public was common. As if common was a dirty word. My smile and Grandma Ruth got me the job with Mrs. B. There wasn't an old lady in the world I couldn't charm after handling Grandma Ruth all my life. I learned to fake this kind of carefree, easygoing, unbothered smile just for her. Fake it till you make it, my dad said, and he would know. I mean, carefree, easygoing, and unbothered were three things no one ever felt around the woman. More like tense, tired, and dyspeptic, which is a word I learned at the beach. Before I got the job with Mrs. B., I just said sick to my stomach. My smile came from playing cards with my grandmother for hours on end, watching HGTV, and force-feeding myself jars of her homemade grape jelly, which I'm pretty sure she made with toadstools and piss. She was my babysitter--her house, after school and every weekend--from the ages of nine to eleven when Mom and Dad were swamped by life. There was no saying no to Grandma Ruth. Not even no, thank you . She was kind of a fascist, and my parents were not part of the resistance movement. Too busy to take sides. So I learned to get along. With a smile. Like you do with dictators when you really just want to be left alone. I honed it over the years--this smile--and developed others, especially when I went to work at a country club. I learned from going out with Taylor that every expression has meaning behind it. My Country Club Smile said, No matter how nasty, demanding, or bat-shit crazy you are, I can get along because I'm getting paid, and one of us is leaving soon, so [big smile] how may I help you? One of the women at the club--Mrs. Conkright, overly tanned and dripping with gold--always told me after her two-martini lunches how much she liked my smile. "Oh, that smile, Briggs. The hearts you're going to break with that smile." She'd press her hands flat against her chest--jewelry clinking--and add, "Mine is already one of them." And she was, like, fifty, and married, so this was just the game, you know? My dad always said that much of life was a game, so it was important to know the rules. Mrs. Conkright owned an elder-care advocacy company and had recently been hired by Mrs. B. to find suitable live-in help for ten weeks over the summer. Mrs. B. owned a house on the beach in South Haven, here in Michigan, that needed some minor work. She didn't drive but wasn't ready for assisted living, and really only lived in the house from late spring through summer. She had a second place somewhere warm for the rest of the year. When Mrs. Conkright learned I'd done my senior-year service project volunteering at Bluestone Court Assisted Living Center--and smiling till my face hurt--she hired me on the spot. "Try not to break her heart," she said to me, after telling me a little about Mrs. B., and I said, "She'll probably end up breaking mine." Mrs. Conkright grinned at her lunch companions and said, "Ladies, what did I tell you?" She gave me a ten-dollar tip, which I put in the tip pool. She also gave me her niece's phone number, which I put in my pocket and only threw out after she left. 3 I mastered a bunch of different Old People Smiles at Bluestone Court, which my dad called Bluehair Court, like it was the punchline to the most hilarious joke he'd ever told. I had to be careful not to say it that way when I was there. His jokes had a way of sinking into my mind, whether I wanted them to or not. There was my: * There's My Girl Smile * Why, Yes, I'd Love Another Hug Smile * All Right, Law & Order 's On . . . Again! Smile * Your Granddaughters Are Beautiful Smile * Yeah, You Farted and We All Heard It Smile * No, Nixon Is Not the Current President Smile * Yes, I Would Love to Hear Again How You Met Your Husband Smile * Cards? I'll Deal Smile And the classic . . . * Yes, It Is a Good Day to Be Alive Smile. At home, it was pretty much just my Yeah, Dad, You're a Hoot Smile, 24/7. 4 I met Mrs. B. a week after graduation, which came and went much faster than I thought it would. Senior year was crazy busy, crazy stressful. Then suddenly it was over. It was graduation morning, and I didn't have school, swimming, baseball, studying, volunteering, stressing, work. I had this whole day with nothing but the ceremony that evening, so I made coffee for my parents and then had coffee with my parents and kept thinking, Man, this feels weird . For the last two years, we all had mismatched schedules. First one up--that was me--made coffee. Last one to leave--that was Mom--washed the pot. We only drank coffee together on Christmas. On every other holiday or weekend, at least two of us were working. The other was sleeping in. I was quiet until Dad said he wasn't proud of me. As only my dad could. Mom and I smiled to let him know we found him funny. Mom listed some of my highlights from the year: * class president * ranked ninth academically * captain of the baseball team * co-captain of the swimming team * double letter winner * Academic All-State baseball * Scholar Athlete of the Year * homecoming king * full academic scholarship to the University of Michigan * makes coffee every morning "And he remembers to put the toilet seat down," she said. "Our son's quite a catch, and I'm not the only one who thinks so." Dad didn't look up from the newspaper when he said, "Are we supposed to be proud?" "You've got to admit it's a good list," I said to him. "It's not a bad list." "It's a good list," Mom said. And she would know. She lives by lists. Dad put the paper down and dropped his hands on top of it. "It's high school," he said to Mom. "I have always expected our son to do well in high school and graduate, so, no, I am not proud of him for doing what was expected." Then he reached out his long arms--I inherited his build, his height, but Mom's light coloring--and rubbed my head and said, "Ah, you need a haircut." And since I always wore my hair super short, he found this hilarious. Such a cut-up, my dad. To me he said, "If you were a halfwit, then I'd be proud of you." "If I were a halfwit, you'd have to be one too," I said. "You know. Apples and apple trees and all that." Mom said, "If the two of you were halfwits, I'd have put whiskey in this coffee." She put a splash in whenever Grandma Ruth dropped by. Not that she was a halfwit. She was just Grandma Ruth. And she liked to show up unannounced. Always unannounced. And she left the same way. Without warning. Coming or going, she was like the wind. The wind or diarrhea. This was my family. The Henrys. We had expectations. We achieved. We catalogued our successes, and we never needed our hair cut. We were a riot at Thanksgiving too. Excerpted from The Lake Effect by Erin McCahan All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.