Every Other Weekend by Abigail Johnson
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Web ID: 16223711Real World Problems
I got this book from a library and I have been reading for a while, it started out sort of interesting. Adam kept mentioning his brother but I was always wondering what happened. When he finally talked about him it pulled at my heart strings and I actually cried. When Jolene meets a movie director she watches several movies with him until he does something I could never dream of him doing. In the end he gets in trouble in more ways than one but deserves every moment of it I hope real world people like that end up behind bars. But this is the best book I've read in my whole life and I've read thousands because I am a true bookworm, I could never put this down except when I passed out at 4:00 in the morning.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Teen Hardships
CW: Sexual assault of a minor, child abuse, emotional abuse/neglect, loss of family member, talk of weight and food consumption(minor) For some reason I wanted to rate this book 4 stars, but them I tried to think of why and couldn't come up with a reason. This book handles VERY challenging and difficult topics and themes, but I think it's important for young readers who deal with circumstances such as these to be able to see themselves in literature. This book is about two different teens, both of which are going through extremely difficult times in their lives. Every Other Weekend is a novel about these teens attempting to tackle grief, neglect and other hardships that children their age should never have to deal with but is a reality for most. Adam is dealing with the loss of his brother and the fact that this loss has broken his family apart, literally. Not only does he have to deal with grieving for his sibling, but his parents split and he has to attempt to understand why his parents are now living apart regardless of the love they have for each other. Jolene comes from parents that are more worried about what they can get from each other that they use her to attack each other. She deals with two parents that place money above her own well being and would rather hurt her or neglect her in more ways than one just to get an extra buck. Jolene's mother repeatedly tries to use her to get to her father and her father refuses to spend any time at his apartment on his weekends with his daughter. Instead he leaves her with the woman he left Jolene's mother for, who he also neglects. When the book started I didn't like Jolene's character. I felt for a 15 year old her thoughts were extremely mature and didn't match up with the words that actually came out of her mouth. Though I recognize that when children are in tough home environments that they are forced to grow up faster than most. Jolene's character development really took off after about 100 pages in. She went from doing whatever she wanted regardless of the consequences to her or those around her to being more thoughtful of her actions and words. Adam is dealing with the loss of his oldest brother and uses anger towards his father, who moved out, as an outlet for his grief. His mother is unwilling to let go of the son she lost, still washing his sheets every week, wrapping up Christmas presents for him and setting the table as if he was alive. This is part of her own grieving process but it has a big impact on the rest of the family, making it harder for them to not forget, but to move on. The side characters in this book weren't all that present but when they were, the author used them to send a message or deal with another hard topic a lot of teens have to deal with. One of the side characters played a huge role in the book and that was Jolene's father's girlfriend. Her father leaves every weekend and leaves Shelly will Jolene. At one point they mention that Jolene hasn't seen her father in about 190+ days and it was Shelly who was keeping count. Shelly was a huge reason why Jolene's already not so perfect life got even more complicated. Jolene and Shelly's relationship is very difficult and took a huge turn towards the end of the book and I'm really glad that the author handled it the way she did. I think this is a good book for high schoolers to adults as long as the reader knows what they're getting themselves into. This book is chalk full of trigger warnings and content warnings, but it was amazing how each theme was dealt with. From sexual assault to emotional manipulation to physical abuse and even grief, I felt like each topic was handled with such care and it's something I can definitely appreciate.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
amazing book!
I love this definitely one of my favorite books
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Worth the read
I’m not sure what to say about this book. When I started and saw how long the book was I was worried it would drag on. The first quarter of the books moved along fine and I flew threw the last 3/4s because what was great about the story was how organically we learned about each of the characters. Because Jolene and Adam were getting to know each other it felt like I was meeting them as well, and that made the trials each of them faced feel more real. There are heavy topics, grief, abuse, sexual assault throughout the book and parts made me cry but the relationships in the book were so raw and authentic in the good and the bad that when I finished I felt overwhelmingly hopeful. Oftentimes in books written from two viewpoints I get frustrated when each voice tells events over from their point of view but the author does a good job of keeping the story moving and not rehashing every event.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com