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Summary
Summary
An urban romance that will capture your soul, break your heart, and restore your faith in the human spirit
Fifteen-year-olds Cece and Mack didn't expect to fall in love. She's a sensitive A student; he's a high school dropout. But soon they're spending every moment together, bonding over a rescued dog, telling their secrets, making plans for the future. Everything is perfect. Until. Until . Mack makes a horrible mistake, and in just a few minutes, the future they'd planned becomes impossible. In this stark new reality, both of them must find meaning and hope in the memories of what they had, to survive when the person they love can't stay.
From award-winning writer Paul Griffin, Stay with Me is both heartbreaking and uplifting, filled with characters (both dog and human) that will forever change the way you look at the world.
Author Notes
Paul Griffin lives, writes, and trains dogs in New York City. His previous novel, The Orange Houses , was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults Top Ten, an International Reading Association 2010 Notable Book for a Global Society, a Chicago Public Library's Best of the Best Book of 2009, and an Amelia Bloomer Project Award winner.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In a narrative spanning 102 days, Mack and CeCe, co-workers at a restaurant and co-narrators of the story, are set up by CeCe's brother, Anthony, and slowly hit it off. CeCe is heartbroken when Anthony joins the army, leaving her alone with their alcoholic mother, whose condition Griffin (The Orange Houses) delicately conveys with profound emotion. Mack, whose mother left him with a bitter alcoholic father, is gentle with the dogs he trains, but he's mentally disturbed-psychologically tormented by a hissing noise, "Like when you roll the radio to static and dial up the volume." When the hissing gets loud, generally as a reaction to injustice, Mack turns chillingly violent. As tension builds, readers will likely anticipate that this violence will ignite the conflict that brings Mack and CeCe's relationship to an end, but each step of that journey is authentic, painful, and heartfelt. Griffin's gift at giving voice to deeply flawed, disadvantaged characters without patronizing or oversimplifying their circumstances shines in this moving novel of loss, acceptance, and the possibility of redemption. Ages 14-up. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
When high-school dropout Mack falls in love with ambitious, straight-A student Cece, her alcoholic mother and military brother immediately accept him. Everything is perfect: Mack has a loving girlfriend, an encouraging family, and a beloved pet pit bull. Then he makes an irreversibly bad mistake, and their world, along with their dreams for the future, crumbles. Torn apart, Mack and Cece must learn to move on after love ends. Griffin, award-winning author of The Orange Houses (2009), offers a strong title in the competitive teen romance genre. When faced with horrible circumstances, Mack and Cece discover that their lives have a greater purpose than they ever imagined. With tragic Romeo-and-Juliet elements, this is a fast-paced, refreshingly honest, and surprisingly realistic urban love story that avoids sentimentality; and while it's no fairy tale, Griffin leaves room for a hopeful ending.--Fort, Bethany Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
In this novel, two urban teenagers bond over a rescued pit bull. ACCORDING to legend, the Random House co-founder Bennett Cerf once said that to guarantee a best-selling book, you should title it "Lincoln's Doctor's Dog." In these dogcrazed times, you could probably skip both the president and the doctor - especially if you throw an adoring retriever or a bug-eyed terrier on the cover. Think of "The Dogs of Babel," "Marley & Me," "You Had Me at Woof"; the list goes on. "Stay With Me," Paul Griffin's young adult addition to the dog-lit pack, prominently features a massive-headed but smiling pit bull both on its cover and in the story. This funny, wrenching, often heartbreaking novel, Griffin's third, brings contemporary characters and authentic street atmosphere, not to mention dogs and dysfunction, to the age-old story of two teenagers - here, same side of the tracks but different ends of the academic spectrum - in the bliss of first love . . . until, of course, something horrible happens. The couple, who narrate from alternating firstperson viewpoints, are Mack Morse and Céce Vaccuccia, both 15. Mack is a Texas-raised, severely dyslexic dropout whose mother left years ago after "God called her to be an actress." He and his abusive, alcoholic father now live in a part of New York City that is several worlds removed from the Upper East Side. Dad's a janitor; Mack, having scored a criminal record for stealing pizzas when he was starving and cutting a kid who assaulted him, works as a dishwasher at nearby Vic's Italian restaurant. He also walks and trains dogs, skills acquired from his mother. Besides being nuts about dogs, Mack can get almost any mutt he meets to obey. Caring for animals calms his anger and violent impulses, which simmer in his head like "the hiss of radio static." Céce, for her part, is a tough-talking A student who lives close by with her football-star-turned-line-cook older brother, Anthony, and her own alcoholic (if also beautiful and beloved) mother, Carmella, in a "rotting, double-mortgaged vinyl-sider." Anthony, who likes Mack despite his sketchy past, wants to couple him up with Céce; the two soon fall hard for each other. As in Griffin's two previous acclaimed Y.A. novels - also about troubled young adults struggling against everything from poverty to absentee parents to physical handicaps - the setting is New York City. Griffin works with at-risk and special-needs teenagers, so he knows from down-and-out adolescents. He's also a dog trainer, and the wisdom in the dog-handling scenes in "Stay With Me" makes them among the book's most interesting. With dogs, Mack says, "you have to force yourself to be a winner. Losers make them nervous." Later he remarks, "Smartest dog is as smart as a three-year-old kid." Who knew? And I have two mutts myself. Griffin's sensual descriptions of the city are another highlight "Across the street" thinks Mack, "a pair of sneakers strung over a power line turns in a hot wind that smells of ozone." Riding a bus with the window open, he observes: "I smell cheap perfume, crackling chewing gum, cinnamon, vanilla incense, pizza, chicken gyro smoking on a cart vendor's grill." The plot moves fast - a plus for today's time-challenged teenage readers - but occasionally the narration feels too slick for the story. When Mack says, for example, "Her tongue hangs long in fast panting" or Céce says, "I trip myself to the bathroom," these don't sound quite like the words you'd expect from otherwise realistically rendered teenage characters. Moreover, on occasion their actions are so noble or so worthy of straight-to-DVD action flicks as to challenge belief. Young, poor, with two jobs and one (lousy) parent, Mack still meets a homeless guy daily to give him $10. Anthony offers Mack $4,000 charged on his credit card for dog-training school, even if Mack can't pay him back. Meanwhile, Vic reacts with a mere shrug when Carmella crashes his car. And when Mack and Céce attend a wealthy girl's party, the scene is overly melodramatic, with Mack fighting off big mean rich boys as if he were a kung fu black belt. Two minutes later, he's making love to Céce in an alley, whispering, "You're my warrant to be here, and I don't need anybody or anything else." (Someone get Taylor Lautner's agent on the blower!) But other characters are brilliant. Céce's friend Marcy is one of the most amusing and accurate fictional teenage girls I've ever encountered, and the male authority figures who appear in the latter part of the narrative are gorgeously rendered. And Griffin always snaps back from schmaltz with tenderness and realism, whether it's scarify credible dialogue between high school girls ("'You totally made out with that loser delivery guy dude last night.' 'What? No,'" and later: "I. Did. Not Kiss. The delivery boy") or a hilarious exchange between Carmella and Vic. ("'All the years we've known each other, have I ever steered you wrong?' 'Many times.' 'Besides those times?' 'Never.'") Griffin gracefully answers questions and solves mysteries, leaving us with hope and a smile without making things falsely shiny and bright. Almost everyone is a contradiction, neither all good nor all bad. And some of us make terrible mistakes without being terrible people. Those mistakes, though they can't be undone, can at least be assuaged by kindness. Cathi Hanauer's third novel, "Gone," will be published in June. She is the editor of the anthology "The Bitch in the House."
School Library Journal Review
Gr 10 Up-Paul Griffin's novel (Dial, 2011) about two teens who fall in love despite vast differences is brought vividly to life by Mark Zeisler and Annie Henk. The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Mack, a high school dropout with a huge heart and a deep connection with dogs, and CeCe, a smart, determined, and complex girl who struggles with self-esteem and her mother's drinking. Mack resists the efforts of CeCe's brother to set him up with her for as long as possible because he doesn't feel entirely worthy of her. The resistance weakens when they work together in the same restaurant and they fall in love. When Mack loses control of his anger after the murder of his beloved dog, his and CeCe's realities are forever changed. Each chapter takes listeners deeper into the dynamics of the characters who are nearly flawlessly portrayed by Zeisler and Henk; there are only very brief moments when it is unclear who is speaking. Raw and realistic, listeners will feel invested in the story. While there is no happily-ever-after for any of the characters, there is a feeling of hope that resonates clearly as each narrator moves through the character's transformation. Highly recommended for the beauty in the story and its performance.-Stephanie A. Squicciarini, Fairport Public Library, NY (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Their relationship is doomed from the start.For 15-year-olds Cce and Mack, it's nearly love at first sightnot an easy feat, since they're so remarkably different. He's a dyslexic dropout with a police record. She's an excellent student, studying for an entrance exam to a gifted-and-talented program. Each comes from a hard-drinking, single-parent family, although Cce's mother exudes heartfelt affection while Mack's father is a misanthropic hate-monger. When provoked, Mack's anger is nearly uncontrollable, yet his transcendent sensitivity toward Cce and the pit bulls he rescues and cares for is extraordinary. Pushed together by Cce's brother, the heartbreaking depth of their relationship is vividly depicted through affecting prose and believable dialogue. After Mack gets into serious trouble, their resulting separation marks the end; each of them has to find a way to continue on, horribly damaged, but not destroyed. Remarkable characters abound: Vic, the wily fellow who employs them both in his quirky restaurant; Anthony, Cce's brave older brother; Wash, a compassionate prison guard; Mr. Thompkins, an impatient, drill-sergeant on a mission; and, notably,a pair of slobbering, devoted pit bulls. Even a too-convenient climax doesn't detract but rather gives readers and characters the relief they need. Achingly, authentically emotionally resonant, this sad, never-saccharine tale related in alternating voices will have absorbed readers reaching for the Kleenex.An outstanding love story peopled by a wealth of memorable characters. (Fiction. 14 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
