The Snowball Effect

by Holly Nicole Hoxter

Overview

Lainey Pike can tell you everything you need to know about the people in her family just by letting you know how they died. Her reckless stepfather drove his motorcycle off the highway and caused the biggest traffic jam in years. Her long-suffering grandmother lived through cancer and a heart attack before finally succumbing to a stroke. And Lainey's mother—well, Lainey's mother hanged herself in the basement just days after Lainey's high school graduation.

Now Lainey's five-year-old brother is an orphan and her estranged older sister is moving back home to be his guardian. Meanwhile, Lainey's boyfriend is thinking about having a family of their own, and her best friends are always asking the wrong sorts of questions and giving advice Lainey doesn't want to hear. As she tries to pull away from everything familiar, Lainey meets an intriguing new guy who, through a series of Slurpees, burgers, and snowballs, helps her to make peace with a parent she never understood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061992056
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	03/23/2010
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	363 KB
Age Range:	13 Years

About the Author

Holly Nicole Hoxter was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. Like her character Lainey, she was named after a soap opera heroine. After receiving her BA in English from the University of Maryland, she went on to work as a bookseller, relay operator for the deaf, housecleaner, legal word processor, and dog walker. She currently masquerades as a medical transcriber and begrudgingly still resides in Baltimore with her three adorable cats. The Snowball Effect is her debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

Whenever faced with a decision, 17-year-old Lainey Pike always chooses the chicken-selecting the safest option, so she knows exactly what she's going to get. However, when her mother commits suicide, Lainey begins rethinking her comfortable approach to life choices, especially her decision to commit to her long-term boyfriend, Riley. Playing heavily into her change of heart is her reunion with her estranged older sister, Vallery, and their new role in raising their younger brother, Collin, who has major behavioral issues and becomes the focus of many complicated and difficult decisions. Pushed out of her comfort zone, Lainey begins taking chances, sampling a variety of life experiences and subconsciously applying her mom's teachings from her former role as a life coach. Expertly weaving together quirky family stories, realistic characters and tough decisions, Hoxter presents a unique coming-of-age story, which highlights that teens need not just go with the flow but can and should control their own destinies. (Fiction. YA)

Kirkus Reviews

Lainey has just graduated from high school when she finds out that her mother has committed suicide. Her older stepsister, Vallery, is a virtual stranger when she shows up to take custody of Lainey's five-year-old adopted brother, Collin, who has behavioral problems. Lainey's long-term boyfriend, Riley, tries to support her, but her repressed anger leads her to break up with him on her 18th birthday so she can pursue a relationship with a 21-year-old she meets on a late-night run to 7-Eleven. Lainey and Vallery settle into raising Collin together as Lainey begins to work out her feelings about her mother, Riley, and her father, who wants to be there for her. The story could have easily lapsed into melodrama (Lainey's stepfather and grandmother have also recently died), but debut novelist Hoxter gives a masterful portrayal of the effects of grief. The blue-collar setting is impeccably realized, from Lainey's busted Grand Am to her job at a mall kiosk, adding up to a portrait of a complex and relatable main character whose growth feels authentic and earned. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 9 Up—Having lost her father to divorce and her grandmother to death, when 17-year-old Lainey loses her mother to suicide it's not a big deal. Really. But now her stable long-term boyfriend seems too perfect. And there's the unexpected arrival of her long-lost half-sister taking her mom's place as head-of-house and guardian to their troubled five-year-old brother. And then there's the question of money, always an issue in their blue-collar lives, but especially important in this summer following her high school graduation. Each thing adds a grimy layer to the growing "snowball" inside her. Lainey's measured voice narrates unemotionally, only occasionally changing tones to allow a peek at the true struggle to find herself beneath the surface. Overall, the mood of this novel is bleak: the palpable feel of this mall-oriented, dull Baltimorean suburb combines with Lainey's bland negativity to create a long slog. Also pervasive is the feeling that the supportive characters, who are well drawn but somehow not very realistic, lack adequate motivation for their actions.—Rhona Campbell, Washington, DC Public Library

School Library Journal