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A review by hayleybeale
Take Me with You When You Go by David Levithan, Jennifer Niven
3.0
Two big-name YA authors team up on a powerful novel about two teen siblings breaking away from an abusive home. Bea runs away from home just 2 months before she graduates high school, breaking all contact except an email link with her younger brother, Ezra. Their stepfather has been physically, mentally, and emotionally abusing the kids for years and their mother has been complicit. As Bea explores living away from this toxic environment, Ezra builds up the courage to break away too. (Ezra’s boyfriend is Black, all other characters are white)
The teens’ journey from cowering victims afraid to share their truth to empowered individuals seeking and finding support is beautifully conveyed through their own words (and the back matter provides plenty of resources for kids in abusive households).
However, I struggled with the medium that was used: Bea and Ezra send unfeasibly long, wordy, and perfectly composed (even including dialogue) emails to each other that feel much more like a narrative rather than a message. I understand the reasoning behind doing it this way - twin individual narratives would not have allowed for their relationship to build and help each other - but as the teens I know barely use email these multi-page opuses feel jarringly unreal and I felt I was hearing the authors’ voices rather than Bea and Ezra’s.
Nonetheless, Levithan and Niven have important things to say about breaking away from abuse and understanding your own self-worth and the reader will be cheering on Bea and Ezra on their individual paths.
Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for the digital review copy.
The teens’ journey from cowering victims afraid to share their truth to empowered individuals seeking and finding support is beautifully conveyed through their own words (and the back matter provides plenty of resources for kids in abusive households).
However, I struggled with the medium that was used: Bea and Ezra send unfeasibly long, wordy, and perfectly composed (even including dialogue) emails to each other that feel much more like a narrative rather than a message. I understand the reasoning behind doing it this way - twin individual narratives would not have allowed for their relationship to build and help each other - but as the teens I know barely use email these multi-page opuses feel jarringly unreal and I felt I was hearing the authors’ voices rather than Bea and Ezra’s.
Nonetheless, Levithan and Niven have important things to say about breaking away from abuse and understanding your own self-worth and the reader will be cheering on Bea and Ezra on their individual paths.
Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for the digital review copy.