VOYA – Sara Guan
VOYA – Laura Woodruff
Seventeen-year-old Myra, aka “Doormat,” holds everything together. She takes care of four younger brothers, helps her overworked parents, and does her boyfriend’s homework while he runs track. Unappreciative Erik, handsome son of the town dentist, tells her he is breaking up because he needs “space.” Her older sister, Melyssa, five months pregnant, returns home from college, forcing Myra out of their bedroom and into the unheated basement. Grieving and devastated, Myra operates on autopilot as she moves from one responsibility to the next. Then, graduate student Peter Tree appears in advanced placement biology to offer two high school seniors an eight-week trip to the Galapagos Islands to study plant and bird life. The catch is that candidates must take Saturday classes, complete a research proposal, and raise one thousand dollars, after which winners will be selected. Although Myra senses a chance to escape, she must be pushed into flying. This second novel by the author of acclaimed Wolves, Boys, and Other Things That Might Kill Me (Viking, 2010/VOYA June 2010) is a winner. As Myra navigates from one trauma to the next, we know she is a princess in a scullery maid’s disguise. Her cast of supporting characters is equally entertaining: sniveling Erik, sarcastic Melyssa, rough and tumble siblings, and, of course, Prince Charming, incognito as a graduate student. Funny, sensitive, loyal and endearing, Myra is a heroine to remember. Reviewer: Laura Woodruff
