This warmly nostalgic pair of books (The Summer Sherman Loved Me and Grace Above All) are not a series but are rather companion novels with shared characters. Realistic and well-done, they capture a moment in time and a moment in girlhood with humor and poignancy. ( )

Reviewed by Audrey for TeensReadToo.com

Grace is just trying to be a normal kid, but she finds it is pretty hard when her mom sleeps and smokes all day and she is left taking care of her younger siblings.

She thinks things will change when the family takes a trip to a cabin on the lake for a couple of weeks, hoping that maybe her mom just needs to relax.

WRONG! All of the responsibility falls on Grace, as usual.

She does meet a boy, though, named Frankie. He is very cute and likes her back, but they can never be alone because Grace is always stuck caring for her brothers and sisters.

This is a great book, following THE SUMMER SHERMAN LOVED ME. ( )

Jane St. Anthony’s "Grace Above All" reads like a lazy summer day, appropriate for its cabin-on-a-lake vacation setting, which exists outside of the passage of time. Sure, the days may pass slowly as the weeks fly by, but such a vacation spot remains unchanged year after year. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to determine what year the novel is set in. The clues are sparse. The story must occur in or after 1966, because it makes reference to the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Summer in the City,” but it was long enough ago that child safety restraints were unthought of, Little Lulu was on comic stands, and penny candy actually cost a penny (or less).

The prose is typically unspectacular, letting its moments of brilliance stand out and shine. The same could be said for the character development. Many of the characters are one-dimensional. For example, the love interest is a stock “charming, handsome boy-next-door” figure. The mother, pegged as lazy and neglectful, is given no reason for these character traits–no childhood trauma, no mental illness…she’s just lazy. But Grace, the narrator, gains depth as the pages turn. The aching and excitement she feels as she awkwardly navigates her way into her first love is hauntingly familiar.

Grace experiences a few minor epiphanies as she works at making sense of the world, but there is no dramatic character change. During the anticlimactic confrontation between Grace and her mother, and in the shallowly sloping denouement that follows, the heroine and her nemesis make only minor, nearly imperceptible behavioral changes. One could hardly expect more from a book that spans not-quite-two weeks. The resolution may overgeneralize a little, but it doesn’t pretend to explain anything, or even give much hope for lasting character change. In short, it is realistic.

3.5 of 5 ( )

St. Anthony, Jane. Grace Above All. Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2007.

Grace, the main character in Grace Above All is a stand in mother for her younger siblings even as their mother is in the same house. Bernadette, Grace’s mother is present literally but takes no parental responsibility leaving Grace to take over all responsibility. Throughout the story Grace’s builds resentment for her mother until a series of events forces the issue. Bernadette responds by making an effort to acknowledge Grace and her other children’s loss because of her lack of connection and responsibility.

A budding romance develops with the boy from the camp next door who Grace meets when he swims out to help her same her sister who has floated far from shore on a raft. The family history that is revealed to Grace answers questions and explains behaviors that contribute to her character’s growth. The multiple meanings of the title match the many threads of the story revealing the complexity of the character and her growth throughout.