A Year and a Day Author:Leslie Pietrzyk Fifteen-year-old Alice dreams of her first kiss, goes to sleepovers, makes prank calls, auditions for Our Town, and tries to pass high school biology. It's 1975, and at first look her life would seem to be normal ... and unexceptional. But in the world that "genuine and fully developed talent" (Washington Post) Leslie... more » Pietrzyk paints, every moment she chronicles is revealed through the kaleidoscope of loss, stained by the fact that Alice's mother, Annette, without warning, apology, explanation, or note, deliberately parks her car on the railroad tracks, in the path of an oncoming train.
In the emotional year that follows, Alice and her older brother find themselves in the care of their great-aunt, forced to cope and move forward after their catastrophic loss. Lonely and confused, Alice absorbs herself in her mother's familiar rituals, trying to recapture their connection -- only to be stunned by the sound of her mother's voice speaking to her clear as day as she flips Sunday-morning pancakes. Driven to understand who her mother was, Alice distances herself from her girlfriends and brother as she engages in "conversations" with Annette. As Alice works through her grief, she slowly begins to see Annette as an individual -- separate from simply "my mother" -- and ultimately embraces the bittersweet knowledge that the lives to which we are most intimately connected often remain the most mysterious of all.
Taking its title from the pop-psychology idea that it should only take a year to get over the death of a loved one, A Year and a Day is an intense and deeply affecting portrait of how the human heart counters tragedy and can spin hard-won triumph out of the deepest despair. A redemptive, often humorous meditation on growing up and growing into oneself, this is an intimate and heartwarming novel to curl up with and savor.« less
Fifteen year old Alice dreams of her first kiss, has sleepovers, auditions for Our Town and tries to pass high school biology. It's 1975 and at first look, her life would seem to be normal and unexceptional. But in the world that Leslie Pietrzyk paints, every moment she chronicles is revealed through the kaleidoscope of loss, strained by the fact that Alice's mother, without warning, note or apology, deliberately parks her car on the railroad tracks in the path of an oncoming train.
I enjoyed this novel and found myself reading fast, to see what would happen with Alice. A great story following the highs and lows of a young woman struggling to accept her mother's suicide and the aftermath of this event. It takes place during her 16th year, as she is on the brink of 16.
In many ways, Alice is a typical teenager and we see her journey through grief and the discovery that people are more than what they appear. Pietrzyk develops her characters in many ways and as you journey with Alice, those layers come off and we discover, as Alice does, all the complexities that make up life.
Pietrzyk is a thoughtful author and I think you will enjoy the book and identify deeply with Alice and her family, especially if you grew up in rural America during the 1970s.
This is a wonderful story of a 15 year old girl who loses her mother, and spends a year questioning why, all the while hearing her mother's voice speaking to her, coaching her, teaching her, and telling her things that she did not know when her mother was alive.
Alice Martin is a typical teenager...hanging out with friends, having crushes on boys, and cherishes the times that she spends with her mom. Her mother, however, occasionally falls into deep depressions, and it was during one of these spells, that she kills herself. Alice, her 17 year old brother Will, and her Aunt Aggy struggle to find the answers why Annette Martin decided to do what she did.
Alice knows that nothing will ever be the same again, and wrestles with the fact that her mom is gone forever, and there are a lot of unanswered questions. When she begins hearing her dead mother's voice in her thoughts, she is not even afraid. Her mother's voice stays with her for a year and a day, answering many of Alice's questions.
This is moving coming-of-age story with a beautiful ending.
