NO FENCES IN ALASKA

In this YA novel
for older teens, a hard-partying, drug-using teenage girl in trouble asks for
help from her long-estranged grandfather, who’s facing a challenge of his own.

Harper, a spirited
16-year-old girl in Texas, doesn’t remember the last time that her parents
praised her or told her they loved her. Her condemnatory father, Greg, the head
of an ultraconservative religious private school, has already driven her older
brother away; Harper has found personal validation in flaunting her sexuality
and uses heroin with her college-age, drug-dealing boyfriend. A confrontation
with her father is followed by her boyfriend’s betrayal and the discovery that
she’s pregnant. Desperate to escape the mess that her life has become, Harper
calls her grandfather Cooper—a novelist and songwriter in Alaska whom she
hasn’t seen or talked to in 10 years—and asks for refuge. Cooper’s own life is
crumbling after a diagnosis of early Alzheimer’s disease, but he’s determined
to give Harper the help and unconditional love that he didn’t give his own
daughter, whom he lost to drug addiction years ago. Sobey (The War Blog, 2018) vividly realizes the Alaska setting, and he
frankly develops themes involving families torn apart by drug use and the
sexual objectification of girls and women. He also offers a strong female
protagonist who finds her voice and self-respect. The novel could be read as a
just-say-no cautionary tale, as Sobey offers numerous, graphic examples of
drug-related tragedy and ugly dysfunction, but its upbeat outcome feels
unlikely. Harper and Cooper, however, are dynamic, complex, introspective
characters who find, in each other, an accepting family at last. The warmth of
their relationship leads a bit too conveniently to other familial
reconciliations, new and rekindled romances, and an idealized resolution of
Harper’s baby dilemma, but it has a lingering resonance.

An affecting
portrayal of a troubled teen’s journey toward redemption despite a facile
ending.