When a homeless teen goes into a Unitarian church to listen to the organ music he plans to slip out before the service ends. Sam doesn’t believe in religion, “unless music could be considered a religion. Because he knew God, if there was one, was just not on his side.”
Holly Goldberg Sloan’s Young Adult novel I’ll Be There pulled me in so thoroughly that I stayed up way past my bedtime to read the whole book in one sitting. Sam and his brother Riddle are richly detailed characters who can’t escape their paranoid father, have never gone to school, and have never lived in one place for more than a few months. Sam is a master at non-attachment.
Until he meets Emily Bell, the daughter of the choir director of the First Unitarian Church.
I’ll Be There is a fast-paced YA novel that has more than just plot. What is it like to be homeless? To be trapped by a crazy father? To be the teen caregiver to a needy little brother? I’m happy to say that Sloan knows how to write and spices her novel with plenty of humor to balance the sadness. Plus, she’s just published a sequel!
Betsy Kepes, March 2015