The Sweetness of Salt

October 1, 2010

On graduation, valedictorian Julia has her summer planned out—avoid Milo, who snubbed her after prom; start a prestigious internship, arranged by her lawyer father; pack for her first year in prelaw, also encouraged by her father—until her polar-opposite sister, Sophie, shows up and demands that Julia be told the truth about the family's secret past. Feeling betrayed after learning that she had a sister who lived and died before she was born, the usually calculating teen gives up all her plans to follow Sophie back to her small Vermont town and help her turn an old house into a bakery, Sophie's longtime dream. In this slow yet ultimately satisfying story, as Julia reconnects with Sophie, gets to know the locals and begins talking to Milo again, she discovers that she has more in common with Sophie than she ever imagined, how their sister actually died, the real meaning of honesty, a sense of community and her own aspirations. Like salt brings out sweetness, the drama draws out the sweet, sniffle-inducing ending. (Fiction. YA)

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December 1, 2010

Gr 9 Up-High school valedictorian and overachiever Julia feels that she has her life all figured out. She plans to be a lawyer like her father, who has lined up a summer internship for her, to be followed by pre-law at a college where she has been given a full scholarship. Julia has never questioned her parents' overprotectiveness or their insistence on perfection in everything. This all changes when her older sister Sophie, who has long been estranged from the family, comes to her graduation and gives her a car and an invitation to visit her in Vermont, where she is renovating an old house and planning to open a bakery. Impulsively, Julia decides to take Sophie up on the offer and ends up spending the summer working on the house, meeting new people, and discovering some truths that her parents have kept from her. Julia also comes to understand herself better and to make her own decisions for her future. This is a quiet but powerful story, and the gradual revelations of family secrets make it an absorbing read. Both Julia and Sophia are complex, believable characters, and the slow development and strengthening of their relationship is one of the highlights of the book. Readers of Laurie Halse Anderson's Catalyst (Viking, 2002) and Megan Frazer's Secrets of Truth and Beauty (Hyperion, 2009) will appreciate this story, as will Sarah Dessen fans.-Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ

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