Lord, Emery. The Start of Me and You. New York: Bloomsbury, 2015.

Sigh. How can I not like a book that relies so much on references to Miss Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Paige Hancock fancies herself to be Elizabeth Bennett. (Don’t we all?) But nerdy Max suggests she is more of a Jane and persists in calling her Janie for much of the book. The stuff of which dreams are made.

But Paige isn’t necessarily ready to dream. She is a year out from the loss of her boyfriend in a drowning accident. She still, however, is getting “the look” of pity from many who surround her. She still has nightmares of drowning herself. The school year is new, and she creates a list, prepared to live the rest of her life. She will be more social; she will try new things; she will find a way to date her secret crush; she will swim. Paige works hard at her list, but she is not completely prepared for what life brings her - most notably her friendship with Max, cousin of the secret crush AND for her divorced parents to begin dating...each other AND the stroke of her beloved grandmother, already suffering from alzheimer’s.

I really like Paige and know my readers will too. She has issues with her overprotective mother. She has her best girlfriends to see her through the dark times. She thinks she loves one guy, and all the while she is (spoiler alert; not really...we see it!) falling in love with the other. She experiences much of the real experiences that my students are experiencing each day. I like that her parents are present, and even in the struggle, they grow closer. I like the relationship that Paige has with her grandmother - precious. As noted, I love the literary allusions. At one point Paige notes, “He’d handed me a new mind-set, wrapped in literary references.” She uses “book lover’s math” to calculate how many books a gift card will get her.

I will enjoy book talking this lovely coming of age story in the fall. My readers will fall in love with the story and witness first hand how Paige finds her inner strength and changes her world. I love that her story will give my girls hope to life to its fullest. I think I might do a "Starting Over" slide in my book talk and showcase some of these strong young protagonists. Oh, and I love that maybe a reader or two might be encouraged to give Jane Austen a try. Just maybe.