Girl Unmoored by Jennifer Gooch Hummer

Apron Bramhall has come unmoored. It’s 1985 and her mom has passed away, her evil stepmother is pregnant, and her best friend has traded her in for a newer model. Fortunately, she’s about to be saved by Jesus. Not that Jesus—the actor who plays him in Jesus Christ, Superstar. Apron is desperate to avoid the look-alike Mike (no one should look that much like Jesus unless they can perform a miracle or two), but suddenly he’s everywhere. Until one day, she’s stuck in church with him—of all places. And then something happens; Apron’s broken teenage heart blinks on for the first time since she’s been adrift.   Mike and his grumpy boyfriend, Chad, offer her a summer job in their flower store and Apron’s world seems to calm. But when she uncovers Chad’s secret, coming of age becomes almost too much bear. She’s forced to see things the adults around her fail to—like what love really means and who is paying too much for it

You know, I always get excited when Netgalley approves one of my requests, and sometimes I'm disappointed by the read...but not this time! I so enjoyed Girl Unmoored, and my expectations  were only moderate,  cause the write up sounds kinda funny, sorta interesting, though it turns out this is anything but a kinda-sorta book.

Girl Unmoored is a coming of age story, with a main character younger than the teens I usually read about, yet this contemporary heroine has such pluck that she makes true the saying "age ain't nothing but a number". Thanks to the author, these characters formed in my mind as though I might be able to reach out and touch them...but actually they reached out and touched me. These people are flawed, some are likeable and some not so much.


Apron's often absent father, her bullying step-mum, her 'friend', or the fabulous duo of Mike and Chad, all of them will evoke some feeling in you - and that's what I call a satisfying reading experience.


I was thrilled by the plot. The nasty step-mum storyline doesn't go where I thought it would, and I love when I don't guess the end. Chad's secret I did guess, but it's something that the reader is meant to figure out, and it's quite an experience knowing something that Apron hasn't understood yet, and wondering how she might react at a time when she's already handling so much.


I laughed, I cried... I felt mad, I felt glad... I liked, loved and loathed, and this range of emotions was all thanks to the skilled storytelling ability of Jennifer Gooch Hummer. I looked the author up, and was surprised to find this is her debut novel! What a way to start a writing career.


There are several paragraphs I love in this book, but my favourite would be:


"I ... thought about how small your heart is but how big of a space it takes up. And how, even though you can’t see it, that heart space grows so quietly across a room or up some stairs into someone else’s living room, that even if you never step foot in it again, the air in there is changed forever. (298)"


For other reviews do checkout Goodreads, where Girl Unmoored is currently rated as 4.42 out of 5 stars.