THE REST OF THE STORY

Prolific author Dessen (Once and for All, 2017, etc.) spends
summer at the lake.

Seventeen-year-old Emma’s dentist
father has just remarried, 10 years after divorcing Emma’s addict mother, who
later died of an overdose. Between memories of her mother, her anxious father,
and Nana, her wealthy, patrician, paternal grandmother, who helped raise her,
Emma’s grown up more than a little anxious herself. Unexpected complications
mean she has to spend the three weeks of her father’s honeymoon with her mother’s
side of the family in the resort town where they live. Emma’s mother was raised
there, but Emma hasn’t visited in years. The family runs an inexpensive motel
on the original, working-class side of North Lake; Emma’s parents met when he
taught sailing lessons at the more modern, highbrow resort area called Lake
North. Emma finds a place in North Lake, working and playing with her idiosyncratic
cousins and their friends, but her sense of belonging is disrupted when her dad
returns and he and Nana force her to move to the rich side for two weeks. There’s
a mild romance, mild drama, and a large cast of teenagers having a good time.
Most of the characters are reasonably well drawn, though Emma’s anxiety never
feels particularly acute. The rich kid/poor kid developments sometimes feel
stereotypical, and excepting one secondary Asian American character, everyone defaults
to white.