Notes on a near-life experience / Olivia Birdsall.

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Mia never thought she'd be the child of a broken home. Yet when she's 15 years old, one day her father just up and moves out. As her family life crumbles, her love life is finally coming together. Julian, her brother Allen's best friend and her longtime crush, has finally noticed her--and being with Julian makes her happier than she can put into words.

Meanwhile, her mother has disappeared into work, her brother is skipping school and acting weird, and her father is cohabitating with a frighteningly sexy Peruvian woman named Paloma. Mia wishes the divorce would just go away so she could focus on Julian . . . but she can't ignore her problems forever. In this honest, witty, utterly accessible winner of the Delacorte Press Contest, first-time author Olivia Birdsall creates an authentic and lovable teenager in Mia Day.

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the way we were When I was little, my parents held hands in public. Wandering through grocery stores, in movie theaters, at Linda Vista Elementary School's end-of-the-year carnival. Everywhere. It was embarrassing. They held hands even when we begged them not to. As a result of this constant hand-holding and all that went along with it, I am not an only child. There are three of us: my older brother, Allen, is seventeen, I'm fifteen, and my sister, Keatie, is eight. When I was in ninth grade, the hand-holding stopped, much to my relief. Maybe I wouldn't have been so relieved if I'd realized what that might mean. Lately, my family has been different. My full-time family has always been my mom, Allen, me, and Keatie. My dad works a lot, so I think of him as more of a part-timer. He comes on vacations with us, is around on weekday mornings and Sundays, and occasionally stops in for dinner on weekdays. My mom complains a lot about how much he works, but the complaints haven't changed anything yet. The full-time family has always been pretty tight, but lately things have been getting a little . . . loose. We used to hang out together; we'd sit at the same table and do homework while my mom paid bills, or we'd read magazines or play video games (okay, so I don't really play video games, but I'd be there when my brother and sister did). We even sat around and talked sometimes, like families on TV do. During the past few months, Mom has been working more, and Allen's been gone a lot. Keatie and I watch more TV and talk a lot less than we used to. That doesn't sound like a big deal, probably, but it feels like a big deal to me. I mean, my family isn't boring, exactly, but we have routines: --We eat dinner at seven o'clock every night, unless there's a dance performance or a violin recital or a soccer game or whatever going on. My dad only makes it to a couple of dinners a week--always on Sundays, and then usually at least one other day. He works a lot, even on weekends. --Every Friday my brother and sister and I have pizza or Chinese food or some other kind of takeout for dinner, because that's my parents' "date night." When he's in a good mood, Allen gives them an obnoxious piece of advice like "Now, remember, Maggie"--that's my mom's name--"don't think that just because he buys you dinner you owe him something," and then he winks at her, or he'll remind my dad to use protection, or he'll tell them they have their whole lives ahead of them and they shouldn't put all that at risk for a few minutes of fun. He's big on making people as uncomfortable as humanly possible. --On Saturdays we clean the house. Everyone, even my dad, has an assignment, and they can't do anything fun until they finish their assigned chore. --My mom puts us each to bed every night. She doesn't tuck us in or anything, she just likes to talk to us before we go to bed. Most nights before I go to sleep, I tell my mom about school, and boys, and who said what about whom. I guess I tell her everything. --My dad makes our lunches for school every night and puts them in the refrigerator for us so that they're ready and waiting for us in the morning. Unfortunately, he is a big fan of bologna sandwiches, and most of the rest of us aren't. My sandwiches usually end up in the garbage. Allen's friend Julian eats his every once in a while. I don't know what Keatie does with hers. --Keatie, Allen, and I watch Jeopardy! together; sometimes Mom or Dad will watch with us. Okay, so we don't just watch it. We try to answer the questions, and sometimes we even keep score. (I never said these routines weren't embarrassing or ridiculous.) Or we'll each pick a contestant at the beginning and whoever's contestant wins doesn't have to do dishes. --My dad takes one of us to lunch once a month. I think this was my mom's idea; when Dad started working a lot, we didn't see him much, and one night Keatie asked my mom when her real dad was coming home. My mom asked her what she meant by her "real dad" and Keatie said, "You know, the one who lives at home, like on TV. The dad we have lives at work." Mom sort of flipped out and Dad started picking us up from school every once in a while and taking us to lunch. I didn't realize how much I depended on these habits, on the routine, on not having to think or worry about how my family functioned. I didn't realize how much I liked or needed our traditions. I think sometimes you have to lose things to see them for what they really are. Which sounds stupid and obvious and cliched, like that song my mom sometimes listens to in the car about paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. wheels of fortune I guess I began to notice that something was wrong about three months ago. The three of us, Allen, Keatie, and I, were sitting in the living room, waiting for Jeopardy! to come on, watching Wheel of Fortune and guessing at the answer to a puzzle with only three letters--all Ts--showing. It looked like this: __ T __ __ __ __ __ T __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ T __ __ __ __ Title Keatie guessed, "The Cat in the Hat . . . no, wait . . . Stand Up to . . ." I guessed, "Stick My Toe . . . Italy Is Too . . ." Allen didn't bother guessing. "You guys suck. It's Allen Rules the Universe, Obey His Every Command." "Al, you always say that's what the answer is, and it never is," Keatie told him. About then my parents came down the hall into the living room. They were arguing. My dad said something like "I want you to stop acting like my mother, that's all." And my mom said something like "I want you to stop acting like a child, then." We didn't say anything. I don't know what they were fighting about. It would have been easier to guess the answer to an impossible puzzle with three Ts showing than to even begin trying to understand what was going on between them. And at that point, worrying about my parents' relationship seemed as unnecessary as finding the answer to a puzzle on a stupid TV show. They were fine, holding hands or not. There was nothing to see; we kept on driving, didn't even think about slowing down. Excerpted from Notes on a near-Life Experience by Olivia Birdsall All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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Publishers Weekly Review

Mia, 15, is the second of three children whose parents suddenly decide to divorce. In her upper-middle class California neighborhood, she senses she'll be stigmatized by this, but is "tired of avoiding feeling sad by feeling numb" (the "near-life experience" of the title). She processes her fears and questions in episodic vignettes detailing the changes her parents' split has wrought on herself and her siblings. Newcomer Birdsall is a smooth writer and punctuates her heroine's self-absorbed navel-gazing with gimlet-eyed observations and wry humor. "It's hard to take the government seriously," Mia notes, "when the Terminator runs your state." The build-up to the prom, which ends disastrously, is, however, all there is in terms of plot. The author introduces interesting threads about growing up in Yorba Linda, the birthplace of Richard Nixon, and a romance with Mia's brother's best friend but does not fully develop them. The heroine's epiphany-that in order to work through her problems she's going to have to admit to her patient psychotherapist that she has some-may not be climactic, but there's succor here for kids in similar straits. Even teens whose parents' marriage is intact will likely enjoy Mia's world-weary view. Ages 12-up. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Gr 6 Up-Fifteen-year-old Mia Day's life changes drastically when her parents separate. Suddenly Mom is working more and isn't home to cook dinner. Mia's dad has taken up with a sexy Peruvian woman. Her brother, Allen, is acting out. All is not bad in her life, however. Her brother's friend Julian, whom Mia has had a crush on since forever, begins to notice her. She's finally old enough to learn how to drive. Her dad takes her on father-daughter "dates." Finally, Mia's shrink enables her to break through the logjam of repressed emotions she's had about the divorce and to begin to grieve her loss. Divorce and first love are old themes, but the author's spare style, her likable characters, and the witty voice she's given her protagonist set this novel apart. Its short chapters should make it popular with reluctant readers.-Catherine Ensley, Latah County Free Library District, Moscow, ID (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Horn Book Review

Almost without warning, fifteen-year-old Mia's tidy family life begins to ""parallel a bad soap opera."" Her workaholic father moves out, her older brother starts drinking, and her little sister regresses. As for Mia, she's going to counseling--but refuses to admit that anything's wrong. Short chapters, snappy dialogue, and realistic sibling relationships help keep this problem novel contemporary. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Book Review

Mia's vision of her perfect upper-middle-class family lifestyle abruptly changes with very little warning or explanation when her father moves out. Household routines and rituals so comfortably familiar for 15-year-old Mia, her siblings and Mom fade away. As the middle child, Mia recounts not only the negative impact divorce has on older brother Allen and younger sister Keatie, but effectively relates her own feelings of loneliness and isolation, despite the other good things (new boyfriend Julian) that are happening in her life. With Mom withdrawing into her work and Allen developing a drinking problem, Mia feels the weight of responsibility as she reflects on her present through flashbacks of a happier time with Dad's reliable parenting and attention. Written in a realistic, bright, honest, sometimes droll voice, Birdsall's debut portrays the unfortunate side effects of divorce from the perspective of a confused and unhappy young teen who views her parents' behavior as immature and selfish when compared to herself and her siblings. As in life, there is no happily ever after here, just poignant realization that life's circumstances must be worked through and accepted with a great deal of contemplation, understanding and counseling. (Fiction. 13-16) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.