High Praise for Everything Grows
WINNER, SILVER MEDAL, FOREWORD REVIEWS 2019 INDIE AWARD For Best Young Adult Fiction
26 of the best LGBTQ Novels We Discovered This Year. "An emotional yet ultimately uplifting journey of self-discovery, acceptance of others, and learning that life is better than the alternative." —The Advocate
26 LGBTQIA+ Titles for Teens “These teen trials and family dynamics are perennially relatable. . . . The conversational writing has appeal, and Eleanor’s story will hit home with many teen readers.” —School Library Journal
"Awkward, affirming, and compassionate, this story about coming into one’s identity will win over the hearts of its young adult audiences.” —Foreword Reviews
“An epistolary love song to queer coming-of-age. It is a queer becoming that eludes the inclination toward binary and champions self-discovery as a lifelong project.” —BOMB Magazine
12 Most Anticipated Historical YA Fiction of 2019: Fire up some Nirvana and Bikini Kill and check out this one set in 1993 and starring fifteen-year-old Eleanor.” —BN Teen Blog
"LGBT YA Books to Get Excited for in 2019" —Autostraddle
"Sensitive and informative.” —Booklist
“Page-turning prose . . . with great beauty.” —Kirkus Reviews
"Aimee Herman deftly captures what it is to be 15, to be struggling with your identity, transitioning into a new school and a new way of life, and coping with things that none should have to. Eleanor’s character had such a poignant and relatable journey, which, combined with stellar writing and explorations of several facets of the LGBTQ+ community (besides Eleanor, there are also more lesbian, bisexual, and transgender characters), made for an unforgettable book.” —The Bookish Mutant
“Eleanor's story is a positive one for young people struggling with identity, particularly LGBTQ teens.” —You Know You Wanna Read It
"Underscores the importance queer mentors can play in young adult lives and inversely the tragic consequences for queer youth who have no one in their corner . . . Eleanor gives me hope that if we can keep working to uncover our own mysteries and help each other do the same along the way, the world will be a better place.” —The Lesbrary
“Everything Grows plants into your heart and tears it apart as it blossoms.” —Viva La Feminista
“ Everything Grows genuinely felt like reading about a young person’s journey through a few months of one of their most tumultuous years.” —Delicate Eternity
“A thought-provoking young adult novel that is insightful and reflective. The characters are well-developed and likable. Aimee Herman deftly handles sensitive subject matter in a forthright and realistic manner.” —Book Reviews & More by Kathy
“Everything Grows is a sweet and moving read about a young person growing up, coming out, and trying to find the right words to speak their truth.” —Easy Vegan
“Everything Grows is a work of healing. It describes coming out as a lifelong process of discovery. Friendship, disfunction, parenting good and bad, and learning to love are unspooled here against a background of exquisite caring. It is the rare read that leaves one a wiser person.” Steven Taylor, author, False Prophet: Fieldnotes from the Punk Underground; editor, Don’t Hide the Madness: William S. Burroughs in Conversation with Allen Ginsberg
"Set in the decade of grunge rock and ill-advised do-it-yourself body piercings, Aimee Herman's Everything Grows chronicles a sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes funny journey to acceptance, both of self and others. Eleanor Fromme is a witty, kind, and conflicted narrator who could teach many people in our nation a lot about empathy." —Julia Watts, author, Quiver
“Everything Grows is haunting. It touches the darkness of bullying and suicide, yet brims with hope. Aimee Herman's tender debut novel is an achingly real exploration of grief, self-discovery, forgiveness, and love.” —Meagan Brothers, author, Weird Girl and What’s His Name
“Everything Grows will grow inside you like a revelation, slowly unfolding to a shape that is vulnerable, raw and beautifully alive. . . . There’s tender wisdom and a wonderfully rendered young voice that anyone can recognize as human and real—all against a backdrop of riotgrrl rebellion. Teen embodiment becomes self- conscious, painful, and filled with contradictions. Herman writes a real story, teaching everyone a little about life as lived—genuinely and in discovery.” —Max Wolf Valerio, Author, The Testosterone Files
Past Praise for Aimee Herman
“Particular and fierce . . . Much like the heartfelt narratives of Lidia Yuknavitch’s novels, but Herman’s pieces are schisms of a form slowly coming together. By body, by light, by night.” —Jacket 2
“This is re-wiring where it counts: below the lexicon. Below the public-private register.” —Bhanu Kapil, author, Ban et Banlieue
"The work done in this book is desperately necessary. The next time someone grumbles about the uselessness of poetry, put these poems in their hands." —Rain Taxi
"The grace, honesty, and bravery with which [Herman] addresses issues that many won't touch with a ten-foot pole will shake you to the core." —Blotterature
“A visceral, wide eyed, queer movement that creates 'sturdy retinas' in those of us who participate.” J/J Hastain, author Identity Collages
“Aimee Herman celebrates and contradicts our expectations in her disturbing juxtapositions of unexpected images.” —Maureen Owen, author, Erosion’s Pull
“[Herman’s] words are a recipe for seeing differently.” —Daphne Gottlieb, author, Pretty Much Dead
04/01/2019
Gr 9 Up—In this novel set in Nirvana-obsessed 1993–94, Eleanor's classmate and bully, James, dies by suicide. Eleanor's English teacher assigns letter-writing as a way of coping, and Eleanor chooses to write to James about all of the details of her life, including coming out as a lesbian and possibly transgender, her mother's own suicide attempt, her sister's abortion, her parents' divorce, and her first experiences with dating and sex. Part of Eleanor's writing is a response to James's own journal, which she obtained after befriending his mother at suicide survivor meetings. James's journal is also written as letters, surprisingly addressed to "Elinore," and he discloses that he is also gay. Other than the inconsistent, sometimes forced presence of the 1990s setting, these teen trials and family dynamics are perennially relatable. VERDICT The conversational writing has appeal, and Eleanor's story will hit home with many teen readers.—Elaine Fultz, Madison Jr. Sr. High School, Middletown, OH
2019-02-10
In 1993 suburban New Jersey, a teen processes a peer's death and a parent's near death while deciphering her own identity.
Fifteen-year-old Eleanor wasn't close to classmate James before he killed himself: James had called her homophobic slurs, pushed her down, and spit on her. When a teacher assigns epistolary journals, Eleanor directs hers to James because her own mother recently attempted suicide. But Eleanor's immediately sympathetic tone toward her late bully—even wanting to make him a mixtape!—is baffling. When she acquires James' journal and savors it, it seems a textually convenient way to slowly dole out James' backstory to readers. Her warmth fits only later, after she discovers James had a secret of his own. On the plus side, the page-turning prose offers a sparkling new friend, a first kiss, and a worth-her-weight-in-gold trans mentor. The text is graceful and nuanced as Eleanor comes out as a lesbian and then keeps wondering who she is because she senses another layer. Some readers will be frustrated that despite a name change to Eler, Eler never articulates that other layer. A trans and/or nonbinary identity for Eler feels both definite and unclaimed, the arc achingly unfinished. Eler is white and Jewish. In a novel where most characters are white—though Eler's love interest is coded as black—it is unfortunate that when ethnic diversity appears, it is often in a negative context.
Flawed but with great beauty. (Fiction. 15-18)
