Tuesday, June 5, 2012

A Long Way From You-Gwendolyn Heasley

A Long Way From You


Gwendolyn Heasley

HarperTeen, June 5 2012, $8.99

ISBN: 9780061978852



The parents of teenager Corrine Corcoran are paying for her best friend Kitsy Kidd to spend the summer in New York to include attending art classes at Parsons. The resident of Broken Spoke, Texas has dreamed of coming to Manhattan ever since she and her younger brother Kiki saw Miracle on Thirty-fourth Street. Kiki needs the respite as she has become the adult in her family since her dad left and her mom tuned to alcohol.



Being friendly and guileless, Kitsy meets people rather easily. While Corrine leaves to work at a camp, Kitsy from her friend’s West Village apartment visits the Guggenheim and MOMA where she meets the Art Boy. A band member he takes Kitsy around Manhattan and Brooklyn. At Parsons she does well at photography and meets the next It Girl, who has close ties with Tad. Kitsy has learned one thing from her time in the Big Apple is to face your tsuris squarely in an attempt to make them less problematic, which means returning to Broken Spoke.



Kitsy is a fabulous teenager who holds the warm young adult tale together as she finds the best in the city that never sleeps but knows the worst is what she left behind in the Lone Star State. Character driven, fans will enjoy her tour of the Big Apple while she begins to realize you can’t run away from home as whatever drove you to leave still remains as a major icon in your brain. A Long Way from Home is a winning young adult character study.



Harriet Klausner



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