All The Things You Are by Courtney Sheinmel

Things are going pretty well in Carly's life. She has good friends and a great best friend. Her mom has a great job working in the clothing department of popular daytime soap opera. She gets along great with her stepfather (she calls him 'Faux Pa'). Sure, not everything is perfect. She doesn't always get along with her step-siblings, her grandmother has Alzheimer's, and her mom has seemed really stressed lately. But everything changes on the day when the FBI arrives at Carly's house to arrest her mother for fraud and embezzlement. Suddenly Carly's life is upside down and she has no idea what's going to happen next.

Carly is at an age where she's too old to be kept in the dark but too young to really make her own decisions. This is a terrible age in real life but a great age for this novel, because it really ups the dramatic tension. Can you love the sinner but hate the sin? Can you forgive your mother for making mistakes that have changed your entire life? There's an honesty, a genuineness in this book. Things aren't sugar-coated; there isn't a magical turn that makes everything okay after all. Things are hard, things are difficult, things are painful. I've never read anything by Courtney Sheinmel before, but this book definitely made me want to pick up her other stuff.

Check out Courtney Sheinmel's website.

See more at Simon & Schuster.

I read an advanced copy from the Simon and Schuster Galley Grab.

Find it at IndieBound.

Read it with:
Positively by Courtney Sheinmel
Girls Like Us by Sheila Weller
The Lemonade Crime by Jacqueline Davies
She's So Dead to Us by Kieran Scott