(2) 4-6 One spring day, twelve-year-old Glory St. Romain comes home from school to an empty house and then answers a knock on the door. It's her drop-in dad, a long-distance truck driver divorced from her mother, who announces that Mom is on vacation. Skeptical, Glory surreptitiously checks his phone and discovers a cryptic message from her mom: "Your turn." Her dad sends her to stay with her maternal grandparents, whom Glory hardly knows and who have little joy in their lives. Wandering around their small Louisiana town on her own, she meets, befriends, and eventually cares for Gus, a big, sloppy, drooling bloodhound, with whom she feels an instant connection because both are "trying to fit into a space that didn't belong to" them. With Gus at her side, she finds a new focus and a space of belonging. Guillory's characters are all on similar journeys, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously, as each changes habits and expectations. Character development here is subtle but genuine, giving readers an opportunity to predict and evaluate everyone's paths to becoming who they want to be and seeing how they want to fit in. As in her Nowhere Better Than Here (rev. 1/23), Guillory presents a heartwarming account of finding hope in an uncertain future.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2025

(2) 4-6 Less extreme than the dramatic hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters occurring around the globe, the weather crisis affecting this book's fictional place reveals a slower dismantling of land and its inhabitants. Jillian Robichaux lives in the Cajun community of Boutin in the wetlands of Louisiana. Gradually, coastal erosion is destroying the town: the bridge that connects Boutin to the mainland is unsafe; the school cannot be repaired; and businesses, homes, and even a cemetery are now underwater. The future is clear: families must leave. For Jillian, the inevitable exodus feels like an abandonment of her entire culture and her definition of who she is. Guillory's well-crafted setting includes a cuisine of jambalaya, gumbo, and turtle sauce piquant; a sprinkling of French phrases; and Cajun names. The biggest loss, and the one developed most artfully, is the sense of community created in Boutin over generations. The townspeople nurture that history through their stories, which Jillian and her friends capture in an ambitious oral history project that preserves those memories. Jillian's grief, and her trepidation about facing a now unmoored future, ring true and give the novel its heart, while the issues of preserving one's environment and heritage, although strong, never overtake the narrative but offer readers much to ponder.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2023