Fifteen-year-old JL Markham’s life used to be filled with carnival nights and hot summer days spent giggling with her forever best friend Aubrey about their families and boys. Together, they were unstoppable. But they aren’t the friends they once were.
JL can't bear being left behind again. But what if devoting herself to Max not only means betraying her parents, but permanently losing the love of her best friend? What becomes of loyalty, when no one is loyal to you?
Gae Polisner’s Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me is a story about the fragility of female friendship, of falling in love and wondering if you are ready for more, and of the glimmers of hope we find by taking stock in ourselves.
Early Praise:
"Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me is an absolutely real, raw and emotional read, and it's a book that touched my heart with every page." - Katie McGarry, critically acclaimed author of Only a Breath Apart
"Gae Polisner has done it again. I absolutely loved this beautiful, heart-wrenching story about friendship, family, and first love, and what happens when they all fall apart. Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me is a truly special book." - Lauren Spieller, author of Your Destination Is on the Left
"Gae Polisner has done it again. I absolutely loved this beautiful, heart-wrenching story about friendship, family, and first love, and what happens when they all fall apart. Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me is a truly special book." - Lauren Spieller, author of Your Destination Is on the Left
Buy link: https://wednesdaybooks.com/the-real-deal/jack-kerouac-is-dead-to-me/
Review:
Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me by Gae Polisner is definitely an emotional tale. This novel is pretty raw. IT is telling about the struggles of JL's (Jean-Louise) life. JL's mom suffers from dissociation disorder so she is in a depressed fog constantly. There are days that she barely gets out of her bed. JL's dad is on a business trip. JL's best friend Aubrey has shunned her. JL has a boyfriend named Max that is a bit rough around the edges but he is really smart. Max wants to go to California after he graduates and he has invited JL to go with him. JL doesn't want to leave her mother alone.As the reader you see JL struggle with what is going on in her life. She doesn't know what to do. She is having to be the caretaker of the family when it should be one of her parents. JL feels pressure from Max especially with their age difference because he is ready to have sex and she isn't. Then she is also being put into situations that she is uncomfortable with. I just feel like this book had some really odd mature content in it. The fact that it eludes to the fact that Max sleeps with JL's mother. Like Why? Did that really need to be in a young adult book? Was that added for shock factor? I found that this wasn't my favorite story to read. It had some moments that I just didn't understand.
Excerpt:
LATE JUNE
BEFORE EIGHTH GRADE
The day is hot. We’re running through the sprinkler in my backyard, dodging
in and out of the cold spray
that fans over us, shrieking as droplets rain down onto our sun-warmed, tanned skin.
You push me closer as the arc of water
returns, and I fall onto the grass, wet, laughing, taking you down with me. The sod
under us is new and
soft, and the
freshly cut blades stick to our limbs,
our faces.
We are
giddy with summer, with each
other. We are still on the cusp of everything.
Afterwards, you turn off the hose,
and we lie on faded chaise lounges
we drag to the middle of my yard,
our chests heaving with rapid, satisfied breaths in our barely-filled- out bikini tops.
You reach out and take
my hand and an indescribable
sort of electricity shoots
through me, real and palpable, as if I could
reach out the fingers
of my other hand and touch
it, some white-hot charge that holds
us together.
We are friends—best
friends—but more than that. We are entirely,
platonically, in love.
“See that cloud, JL?” You let go and point off beyond the top of the tallest sycamore
branches. “It looks
like a giant mushroom, doesn’t
it?” My eyes follow
your finger, my hand
cold from the
loss. “Do you
see it there?”
I bust out laughing.
I bust out laughing.
“What’s
so funny?” you ask, your voice defensive.
I lean all the way over, tilt
your face a bit with my hand
to change the angle. “It looks a lot like something else, Aubs. Look again.”
You sit up and squint
to see clearer. After a second,
you say, “Oh
my god, it’s a giant penis
cloud, isn’t it?”
and we both fall apart
laughing.
When our stomachs
hurt so bad we have to fight from laughing more,
you lie back down and ask softly,
“Have you ever seen one for real, JL?”
“A penis? No.” I think for a minute. “I mean, pictures, yes, but not in real life, in person.
Why? You?”
You nod and look at me, eyes big, mouth covered by your
own hand like you’ve
revealed some dangerous se- cret, making me sit up and demand,
“Okay, spill! Whose?” You shake
your head hard,
your eyes round
over your still- cupped fingers. I run off a few names,
guessing.
“David
Brundage?” “Scott Silvestri?” “Matthew
Flynn?”
You uncover your mouth. “God, no! I hear it’s giant,
though. Like a grown man’s . . .”
“Well, tell, then.”
“No one from school,” you say, covering your mouth
again and adding
through half-open fingers, “closer to home, JL. Come on.”
“Ew, Ethan’s?” I squeal too
loudly, and you nod, and
we both shriek and shudder in exaggerated, disgusted delight. “Oh
my god!” I say. “Why?”
“By accident, obviously. I wasn’t trying! I walked in on him in the bathroom. He forgot to lock the door,
and—”
“Ew! So gross! Don’t tell me!” I cry, but I have a thou- sand questions. Ones I will never dare ask.
“Ew! So gross! Don’t tell me!” I cry, but I have a thou- sand questions. Ones I will never dare ask.
“Right? Totally. That thing is, like, burned
into my brain!” We
shudder one more time for good measure.
After, we’re quiet
for a while, and the clouds shift and the
mushroom one feathers
out and disappears.
I take your
hand this time, feeling
the electric bond
re- turn as I swing our clasped
fingers together in the space between our chairs.
“I love you,” I say.
“Me too,” you respond
too quickly. I roll my head to the
side and smile, and you add, “Your boobs
are getting big- ger than mine. No fair.”
“They are?” I glance down
my chest toward
my two pa- thetic, barely-there mounds beneath
the bikini fabric.
You nod. “Yes. And you’re so pretty—too pretty—you’re really perfect, you know?
I’ve never had a friend
as perfect as you.”
It should be a compliment but, instead, the electricity fizzles as if short-circuited, and my chest
fills with an in- explicable sense of dread. Your admiration feels somehow fragile and conditional, and impossible to live up to.
“No I’m not, don’t be stupid,” I say, irritated. I want to untangle my fingers,
get up, and sprint across
the lawn, but you squeeze harder to hold on.
“Yes you are.
Admit it.” “Aubs—”
“Well, I think you are. I wish I were
more like you. Pretty and
free, and not afraid of anything, like
your mother.”
It feels worse
when you add this, because you don’t know me if you think I’m like her. I’m nothing
like her, off-kilter and unfettered, nor half as beautiful. I’m plain, but I’m solid. And, yet, it isn’t about me, suddenly. It’s what
you have decided.
You have judged me as one thing, and at some point, I will disappoint you by proving you wrong.
“I am not,” I say again, to right things.
“Are too,” you insist, making my face redden
in protest. But you
don’t notice. You don’t
see. And even if you turned and
looked at me,
you couldn’t tell
the flush of anger in my cheeks from too much
sun. “I just
wish I could be more like you. Geesh, that’s all.”
“You do?”
You nod, and
squeeze my fingers even
harder, and we both close
our eyes. I leave them there in yours
even though a few are starting to go numb.
“So much,” you
say. “Really?”
“Yes.
Really.”
So, maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe you’re not judging me at all.
I squeeze back,
letting go of my unease, wanting to hold
on to whatever spell has you enamored with me,
instead.
Or maybe
I’m weak and don’t have
the heart to call out the
lie, and tell you how afraid
of everything I really
am.
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