The Space Between Here and Now

Written by Sarah Suk

Quill Tree Books

978-0063255135

320 pp.

Ages 13-17

October 2023

I know I'm a little late to review Sarah Suk's second young adult book (she wrote Made in Korea in 2021) but I just recently heard of this novel from the Red Maple panel of the Forest Kid Committee who recommended it for their summer reading list. (Each year that I help out with this committee, I learn of new Canadian titles for young readers. These young people are amazing readers!) After checking out their recommendation, I was intrigued by the blurb about The Space Between Here and Now and was not disappointed.

 

Aimee Roh is a typical 17-year-old Korean Canadian living in Vancouver, BC with Appa, her father. She's thinking about university, she hangs with her friends, she has a passion for photography, and she and her father have a close but respectful relationship. She's typical in every way except that she has a rare condition called Sensory Time Warp Syndrome a.k.a. STWS. Those with STWS have different triggers for memories that can transport them back to the time of the memory. When triggered by smells, Aimee disappears, travels back to a memory usually for just few minutes. Some people grow out of the condition, but Aimee is finding that she's experiencing more frequent episodes and wonders if it is because of the stresses of being a senior and anticipating the next phase of her life. What doesn't help is that it is impossible to talk to her father about it or get the supports she needs to help her cope.

 

After a particularly lengthy disappearance in which she is taken to a long-forgotten memory of a family outing to Kitsilano Beach, before her mother abandoned the family when Aimee was 6, Aimee is confused. Her memory doesn't match what she remembers and she begins to wonder whether her mother perhaps had STWS. Taking matters in hand, and with the encouragement and help of best friend Nikita, Aimee embarks on a spring break trip to Korea, hopeful of finding out some answers about her mother and family that her father doesn't seem to want to share with her.

 

With Nikita researching online for clues, and Aimee reconnecting with her Aunt Gomo and childhood friend Junho, the search for Aimee's mom begins. With some new insights into her STWS and into her relationship with her father, Aimee finds herself gaining clarity and even confidence where there was once only confusion.

Teen angst is not unusual but the angst that comes from a chronic condition that unexpectedly disappears you from your life, even if temporarily, is beyond typical. It has left Aimee in a precarious position, in a space between then and now, unclear as to her memories of her past and her understanding of her present. Sarah Suk, a Vancouver author, gives Aimee a story that might appear tenuous, never knowing when she might disappear or where she will end up or even if there is a possibility of ending up in a time loop. But Aimee's story is not anxiety-driven; it is driven by a need to know. Young adults will appreciate that push to become self-actualized, to understand oneself. Aimee's life is many layered, between her issues of abandonment by her mother, being disaffected with her father, and struggling not to stand out because of her STWS. While today's teens may not have a memory-driven time-travel condition, they have their own issues that challenge them in their drive for understanding and satisfaction. They can learn from Aimee who faces peer pressures and family pressures and uncertainty and is still able to resolve things well enough for herself. She may not get the answers she was specifically looking for, but she gets what she needs and learns things that will help her, as well as others. 

Though the fantastical nature of Aimee's STWS elevates The Space Between Here and Now from the drama of teen angst to the realm of science fiction,  Sarah Suk gives a story that is both enlightening about one Korean-Canadian family as well as familiar. For that reason, I urge young people to read The Space Between Here and Now for some insight into their own lives and relationships with others, particularly parents, to see how reconciliation may be reached with patience, effort and, most definitely, compassion.

Harvey Comes Home

Written by Colleen Nelson

Illustrations by Tara Anderson

Pajama Press

978-1-77278-097-0

224 pp.

Ages 8-12

September 2019

A scent, a touch, a colour, a voice. They can draw memories. And memories can take you places. They can take you away from the present and towards something else. They can take you to a past that needs to be remembered or give direction to follow forward. And they can take you home in more ways than one.
 
Harvey is a West Highland Terrier who is left in the care of a dog-sitter while Maggie and her family go on holidays. While they are away, Harvey gets out of his yard and "His curiosity takes him farther and farther away from his home." (pg. 18) After several days away, scrambling for food, attacked by another dog, distracted from a rescue, Harvey is found by eleven-year-old Austin who helps his Grandpa out after school at the Brayside Retirement Villa. Though his mother and grandfather insist that Harvey's owners must be looking for him and that Austin needs to take him to the shelter to help locate them, Austin lies about his efforts, hopeful that he'll be able to keep the dog.

During the day, Harvey stays with Grandpa Phillip at Brayside where everyone, staff and residents alike, fawn over the Westie who acts as an unofficial therapy dog. But when Austin arrives, Harvey accompanies him on his chores. When the reticent Mr. Pickering takes a liking to Harvey, Austin finds the ninety-six-year-old man finally willing to talk and share about his past. He talks of his own dog, General, and of growing up during the 1930s. Though Mr. Pickering is sometimes confused about who Austin is, whether his own wife is still alive, and what Brayside is, he goes to a place of memory with Harvey by his side. As for Harvey, when he "sits beside Mr. Pickering, he drifts off into a place of contentment." (pg. 69)

While Mr. Pickering reminisces about living during the Depression and his complicated friendship with an abandoned girl named Bertie, Harvey's memories of Maggie are fading to elusive scents and sounds, Austin continues in his uncomfortable lies, and Maggie searches desperately for the Westie. Colleen Nelson's title may give away a happy ending for Harvey but it's wrapped in a complex tug-of-war of emotions as Mr. Pickering tells his heartrending stories about hardships and tragedies and lessons about forgiveness are learned.

Told in alternating chapters from the perspectives of Harvey, Maggie and Austin, Harvey Comes Home is not just a story about a dog lost and found. It's a story about the bonds between human and dog. These are the bonds that tie us in love and gratitude, responsibility and empathy. They are the ones that give us our humanity via our benevolence for others. But Harvey Comes Home is also about the power of memory to bring us home. I will admit that Colleen Nelson's story brought me to tears time and time again, as an aging Mr. Pickering grabs at his memories, as Bertie survives against all odds, and as Harvey and General are loved and love.  Colleen Nelson always tells a good story (see her YA titles Sadia, Blood Brothers, Finding Hope, and The Fall for a great sampling) but, in her first middle-grade novel, she is able to grab the reader's heartstrings while blending a dog story with an intergenerational relationship and embedding profound reflections on the Depression and the Dust Bowl. It's a complete package as Harvey's, Maggie's and Austin's stories converge, integrated with heart and important messages about connecting with others and forgiveness for mistakes made when scared, hurt or alone.

Harvey Comes Home will make dog-lovers hug their animals and children ask their grandparents to share their stories from their own childhoods, bringing all a little closer and giving life to new memories for all.

From Harvey Comes Home by Colleen Nelson, illus. by Tara Anderson

With Malice

by Eileen Cook

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

978-0-544-80509-5

316 pp.

Ages 13+

June 2016

Eighteen-year-old Jill Charron just wants the truth.  Waking up in a hospital room without any memories of how she got there and struggling to find words because of a brain injury means that getting at the truth is not going to be easy.  As the byline to the book states, "The truth is how you tell it" and it seems the truths are multitudinous and varied.

Jill's divorced parents seem to want to keep a lot of truths from her, especially the key one that Simone McIvory, Jill’s best friend, was killed in the car being driven by Jill while on a school trip in Italy.  The police, both American and Italian, as well as Evan Stanley, her high-priced lawyer, are badgering her for the truths she can’t remember.  And everybody else, from other students on the trip, to newspaper reports, crime drama series, and subscribers to the “Justice for Simone” blog are more than willing to share their opinions as to the truth.  But what is the truth and is there only one?

While Jill, whisked back to the States by her rich and demanding father, endures rehab and counselling to help heal her body and six weeks of memory loss, the police interview Simone’s parents who portray their daughter as a confident and popular teen with old-fashioned values, and Jill as a less well-liked girl from a broken home and desperate for attention.  Though the strength of their friendship is recognized by many who knew them, different stories arise with regards to the two girls-chilly or friendly, studious or popular, jealous or self-centered–by those who knew them well or just marginally and even by those who’d never met them but nastily weigh in on the news story.

“It doesn’t matter what’s true–what matters is what people believe.” (pg. 102)

Eileen Cook brilliantly layers the multifaceted truths recounted in blog posts, transcripts of police interviews, newspaper articles, yearbooks, and other media as she intricately develops the subplots of With Malice, all with the purpose of revealing what actually happened to Simone and Jill in that car in Italy.  Below the very concrete mess of a mangled car lies a substantial mess of romance, anger, pettiness, jealously, hurt and misplaced affection.  The ultimate truth is both expected and surprising and Eileen Cook reveals it with breath-taking patience, taking YA readers on a suspenseful read all the way to the end before exposing a friendship admittedly more fragile than honest.

Remember

by Eileen Cook

Simon Pulse

978-1-4814-1696-2

320 pp.

Ages 12+

February 2015

People need to ball up.  Life isn't all sunshine and unicorns.  Now they're selling it to people our age?  What, because not getting into the college of our choice is crushing?  No date for prom causing premature PTSD?  It's not trauma; it's real life.  Life is hard sometimes.  It doesn't mean you don't face it. (pg. 12)

That's best friend Win's assessment of the Memtex treatment that teen Harper Bryne's father's company NeuroTech is now offering, with FDA approval, for the "softening" of painful memories that get in the way of living.  But when Harper's beloved horse, Harry, dies unexpectedly of colic, she is devastated and weeks later still unable to sleep or eat.  Though her parents refuse to allow her to receive treatment, Harper easily convinces her boyfriend, Josh, an part-time intern at NeuroTech–and a protegé of her father's– to sneak her in.  In recovery, Harper is thrilled to know she can still visualize Harry but without the devastating sadness and guilt, feeling like herself again.

That is, until she blacks out over memories of a woman falling and the smell of burning meat, and begins dreams of this woman.  Josh is convinced they are just false memories (he is so pro-NeuroTech).  But, having witnessed her blackout, Neil O’Malley, a college student involved in protests objecting to Memtex’s use, approaches her about the possible side effects of the treatment that he is convinced had a role in his older brother’s suicide.

Now Harper is delving into her past, doing some sleuthing around anomalous information about her horse and her mother, and getting Neil to help her with this research, while her relationship with Josh is put on hold and her friendship with Win takes a tailspin.  And then there’s her dad whom she’d always trusted to do everything and anything for her and now whom she is convinced is harbouring secrets and acting only in the best interests of his company.

Remember is a romance with a cautionary spin on the hazards of expecting lives filled only with lightness and good memories, devoid of the painful ones that help sculpt us into the persons we are.  Win is always remarking about Harper’s Mary Poppins’ positive attitude and is disappointed, almost angry, when Harper begins to be less so.  This is surprising considering she acknowledges that life isn’t all “sunshine and unicorns” (pg. 12). But, Win is not atypical, recognizing that sometimes life sucks while still preferring effusive busyness and happy demeanours at all costs.  Not surprising a lot of work related to PTSD and depression is done quietly and discreetly on the side.

Eileen Cook writes captivating realistic fiction with a hint of romance so well, ensuring some sweetness is always enmeshed in the conflict of keeping secrets and telling of lies.  Unraveling Isobel (SimonPulse, 2012)  and The Almost Truth (SimonPulse, 2012) are two more examples of her gripping YA that I’ve been pleased to review here on CanLit for LittleCanadians.  I know my young readers are as enthusiastic by Eileen Cook’s writing as I am, gripped by complex plotlines beyond their own lives and by romantic, friend and family relationships that reassure them that they are normal.  And Remember is one more YACanLit to add to that collection, albeit with a nuance of science fiction that makes us remember that the speculative may not always been that fantastic after all.

Nobody's Dog

by Ria Voros

Scholastic Canada

978-1-4431-1913-9

150 pp.

Ages 8-12

Available September 2012

Reviewed from uncorrected proof

Jakob Nebedy, almost 14, must feel like a star (the celestial kind) just hanging in the sky, without any connections.  Well, at least not anymore and very few.  Six months earlier his parents were killed in a car crash that has left him without any memory of the event.  Although he still lives in the family home, his mother's sister, Aunt Laura, an ER nurse, is his guardian, and she's barely managing herself.  Luckily before his parents died, Jakob had made a great friend, Grant, who had given him the guts to be J-man or J, rather than Nobody, a nickname given to him at school.  But Grant has moved to England, and it's the beginning of summer.  If Jakob had had a dog, like he'd begged for year after year, he wouldn't feel so alone.  But his dad had always said Jakob wasn't responsible enough to care for a dog.

Not surprising Jakob gets recruited to hang out with Libby, the eleven-year-old living with her mom Soleil in the basement apartment, when her mom's at work.   While eager to earn a few bucks to save towards getting a dog, Jakob is very conscious of Libby's relentless drawing and her knowing watchfulness.  Late one night, when Jakob sees a husky wandering outside his house, he follows the dog for hours, even feeding it, but being sure to tell Libby it was only a raccoon.  The husky, who Jakob learns later is Chilko, the pet of Soleil's new boyfriend, returns night after night.  Jakob, who feels like Chilko "gets him", discovers that roaming with the dog provides him with opportunities to connect with others, recall times watching the stars with his dad, experience his bolder J-man persona again, and even trigger his memories about the accident.

In Nobody's Dog, her first children's novel, Ria Voros has managed to create a perfect middle grade read attractive to junior readers: eleven- and thirteen-year-old protagonists, an engaging dog, secret outings, learning about oneself, and an uncomplicated and satisfying resolution.  Nobody's Dog lacks the saccharine nature of so many animal stories:  the heroic feats, the gushy love between child and animal, the evil pet-hater from whom the animal must escape, and the requisite happy reunion at the end.  Nobody's Dog is nobody's 101 Dalmatians. Nobody's Dog is a sophisticated story of survival and friendship layered with memories, youthful judgements and everyday living, with a noteworthy canine presence.