Departures - Softcover

Cook, Lorna J.

3.18

82 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312321295 ISBN 13: 9780312321291

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2004

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From Booklist:

The Vanderzees are always going somewhere, if only in their minds. Suzen is on the verge of graduating from high school, but college isn't where she wants to go, nor is she being honest about who she really is. Perhaps she is too preoccupied with the comings and goings of her mother, whose mysterious phone calls and indifference to the domesticities of the Vanderzee household have become painfully obvious. Then there's young Evan, who seems to be the only one who is actually going where he wants to, but he's chosen an unbalanced companion in Soci, a first love who represents all things rebellious. While they desperately try to sort through their lives, Suzen's father sits in his den leafing through old travel magazines, endlessly planning a trip to Italy that he never seems to take. Cook expertly communicates the very cryptic nature of life's cycles, conveying through her entertaining family that life is always in transition, no matter how stable it appears. Elsa Gaztambide
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Review:

"Vivid language and intense characters enliven this honest portrait of domestic vulnerability."
- Entertainment Weekly (2/27/04)

"Teenagers being mortified by their parents is practically a rite of passage. In Cook's cleareyed first novel, Malcolm and Esme VanderZee are subjected to the irritable scrutiny of not one but two teenage children, to gently comic effect... Cook crisply conveys the adolescents' raw, awkward love lives--especially Suzen's crush on a vivacious older woman...The novel's ultimate power rests with Suzen's coming-of-age, which is as quiet but as decisive as a door swinging open."
- New York Times Book Review

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