The Vow

by Jessica Martinez

Overview

When two teens with complex motives plan to marry, their friendship is put to the ultimate test in this compelling novel from the author of Virtuosity.

Mo and Annie are just friends. Close friends, best friends, friends who love each other more than anyone else in the world—but just friends. No matter what anyone thinks, there’s simply no romance between them.

Then the summer before senior year Mo’s father loses his job—and his work visa. Even though Mo has lived in America for most of his life, he’ll be forced to move to Jordan. The prospect of leaving his home is devastating, and he’s terrified to return to a world where he no longer belongs.

So Annie proposes they tell a colossal lie: that they are in love. Mo agrees that marrying Annie is the only way he can stay, and Annie is desperate to help her friend. But what happens next may be enough to rip their relationship apart forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442458666
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Publication date:	10/15/2013
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
Lexile:	720L (what's this?)
File size:	856 KB
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Jessica Martinez lives in Orlando, Florida, with her husband, her two children, and her violin. She spends her days writing, running, and teaching her children to be music lovers. She is the author of Virtuosity, The Space Between Us, and The Vow. Visit her at JessicaMartinez.com.

Editorial Reviews

09/02/2013
Intriguing but neglected subplots aren’t enough to right Martinez’s (The Space Between Us) imbalanced novel. Studious Mo and artistic Annie, who alternate narrator duties, have been best friends for seven years, when Annie’s sister’s murder and Mo’s arrival from Jordan to an Iraq War–shy Kentucky made them both outcasts. Just before their senior year, Mo’s plans for both the summer and his future are jeopardized when his family suddenly has to return to Jordan. Although Mo and Annie are both smart and resourceful, they immediately decide that the only way to keep Mo in the U.S. is to get married. To keep their relationship believable, the couple must lie to their families, Annie’s new boyfriend, and the entire town. The ensuing complications surrounding the teens’ marriage and the technicalities of immigration law swallow the more believable and accessible storylines of Annie’s family’s grief, Mo’s complex relationship toward his family and two countries, the everyday xenophobia and prejudice he witnesses, and the pair’s changing friendship as they move into adulthood. Ages 14–up. Agent: Mandy Hubbard, D4EO Literary Agency. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

12/01/2013
Gr 9 Up—Mo and Annie have been friends since fifth grade. Living in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, hasn't been easy for Mo (aka Mohammed Ibrahim Hussein), who has battled racism for years, or for Annie, who is still coping with her older sister's kidnapping and murder. The pair have found solace from the outside world in each other. About to begin their junior year, the teens find out that Mo's family is in danger of being deported back to Jordan because of his father's recent unemployment. In order to keep her best friend in the U.S., Annie decides to marry him. They keep it a secret as long as they can, but things blow up in their faces. Through this heartfelt, yet misguided, ploy, they sacrifice the best of themselves—including Annie's chance at happiness with a new boy, Reed. Told in alternating chapters, the story seamlessly switches points of view without interrupting the fast pace. This is a novel about family, friendship, love, and sacrifice that will have readers rooting for the narrators as they try to save their relationship and navigate through very real and current issues.—Jeni Tahaney, Duncanville High School Library, TX

School Library Journal

2013-09-15
Two privileged Kentucky teens concoct a sham marriage to prevent one's deportation, generating fallout neither is prepared to cope with. Mo (short for Mohammed), 17, and Annie, 18, have been platonic best friends since she rescued the newly arrived immigrant from ridicule in fifth grade, and in turn, he coaxed Annie, socially immobilized by her sister's death, back into the world. Mo's summer plans include basketball camp and eventually Harvard or Yale, Annie's, a summer job her sister once held, then art school. Both are devastated when Mo's father is laid off and must take his family back to Jordan. Annie talks Mo into marriage though they're warned of potentially grim legal consequences. Narrating alternating chapters, Mo and Annie are rounded, believable and sympathetic; yet to serve the plot, they must behave in ways that make little sense. Both are careful and observant, unlikely to jump off a bridge without at least looking over the edge first. An odd narrative tension results, as if the characters would much rather do something else. Looming over the story is the urgent, hot-button issue of U.S. teens raised with American identities but lacking legal status. For Mo, deportation means returning to his wealthy family in Jordan and applying for a student visa for an Ivy League education--lowering the stakes from potentially devastating to merely inconvenient. Strong characters resist but can't overcome a frustratingly unrealistic plot. (Fiction. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews