04/05/2021
After extensive surgery, “pale white” Boston-based scoliosis patient Eve Abbott, 16, is “fixed.” With the help of bars, screws, and many staples, the “tilty twist” of her spine is gone. Still experiencing excruciating physical pain and rejected by her white best friend Lidia Banks, “born with a single hand,” whose trust she betrayed, Eve turns to self-medication for escape. Her Roxinol pills take her to a surreal place where the telescope in her room offers help—contingent on a piece of Minnesota disappearing each time. Eve knows she is becoming reliant on the medication but isn’t sure how else to grapple with the pain of her past and present. Mann (What Every Girl Should Know) employs a mixture of verse and first-person narrative. Eve’s physical and emotional experiences resonate, and the supporting cast—Eve’s professor mother, too busy to meet her daughter’s needs; strong, confident Lidia, who might never forgive Eve; and Thomas Aquinas, the teen’s assigned partner for a high-school-wide “buddy system” program, the only one who truly sees Eve and offers “exasperating compassion”—are vividly drawn in this hopeful contemporary novel. Ages 14–up. Agent: Kerry Sparks Levine, Greenberg Literary. (May)
This searing but gorgeous read entwines poetry and prose in its descriptions of a friendship gone awry.”—Buzzfeed
“Intense, unflinching…a gratifying story.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A devastating and beautiful read that clearly shows the complexities of addiction, fear, love, and friendship.”
—SLJ
"Eve’s physical and emotional experiences resonate, and the supporting cast…are vividly drawn in this hopeful contemporary novel."—Publishers Weekly
“The insidiousness of substance dependency, grief, and pain weave together in this incredibly powerful, all-consuming, captivating novel.”
—The Tiny Activist
"Fix by J. Albert Mann is a haunting, heartbreaking story about addiction, internalized ableism, friendship, and what we're willing to do for the people we love. Written in a combination of achingly raw prose and verse, this book will make you lose yourself and then find yourself again in the process. Mann crafts a lacerating picture of grief, addiction, and friendship that will stay with you long after you close the lid.”
—Alaina Lavoie, Communications Manager, We Need Diverse Books
04/01/2021
Gr 7 Up—Alternating between verse and prose, this novel follows a white 16-year-old named Eve through her recovery from surgery to correct the curve in her spine caused by scoliosis. A fight with her best friend Lidia just before surgery leaves Eve struggling alone with her suddenly unfamiliar body afterward. In an effort to avoid physical and emotional pain, Eve becomes more and more reliant on the opiate Roxanol. As Eve wanders in and out of unreality, she works to untangle her complicated relationship with Lidia, her feelings for her neighbor Thomas, and the duality of feeling her body broken and rearranged so drastically. In desperation she makes a deal with the devil: If she sacrifices pieces of a place she's never been, he'll help her get back to where she was. But who is the devil? And what is Eve actually giving up? Although the book ends on a hopeful note, no simple solutions are offered. Both Eve and readers know what she should do, but whether she actually does it is ambiguous, reflecting the reality that addiction and recovery are ongoing processes. Despite the beautifully written verse and lyrical prose, Mann presents Eve's pain, addiction, and desperation starkly. VERDICT A devastating and beautiful read that clearly shows the complexities of addiction, fear, love, and friendship.—Heather Waddell, Sargent Memorial Lib., Boxborough, MA
2021-03-13
Eve is in pain all the time.
The 16-year-old Boston girl is recovering from scoliosis surgery and growing increasingly dependent on opioids to numb the trauma. As her body heals from the agonizing effects of the surgery, she must also negotiate relationships with her physically and emotionally absent mother; her estranged former best friend, Lidia; and her classmate and maybe-crush, Thomas. Her mind confused by painkillers, Eve believes she has made a devil’s bargain as she hears the voice of her telescope talking to her: It promises that her pain will disappear, but so, piece by piece, will the state of Minnesota. The mystery for Eve is to untangle this riddle, one she believes is the key to both her pain and the three people closest to her. As she grapples with addiction, Eve is forced to confront what in her life can be fixed, what she wants fixed, what must stay broken, and what can be transformed into something new. Told in alternating chapters of poetry and prose, this intense, unflinching story asks what it means to be repaired and reveals the forces that bring people back together after being torn apart. Eve and her mother are White; Spanish-speaking Thomas’ grandmother came from Puerto Rico; and Eve’s mother’s partner is a woman who is cued as Black.
A gratifying story of a young woman’s path to recovering pieces of her past self through a present laced with pain. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14-18)
