From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-Naomi, 16, became pregnant after her first sexual experience. Her story is told in alternating chapters with those of Carrie-Anne, the daughter she gave away, who, at 16, decides to find her birth mother. As a child, Naomi walks a fine line around her erratic single mother who expresses adoration of her one moment and verbally abuses her the next, blaming the girl for all her troubles. When free-spirited Lily and her two daughters enter their lives, Naomi glimpses what a healthier, more stable home life could be like and eventually moves in with Lily for the duration of her pregnancy. Carrie-Anne is adopted by a married couple who are also out of balance, and neither parent is equipped to deal with a rebellious teenager. Carrie-Anne reacts to their emotional detachment by fantasizing that her birth mother would love and appreciate her, and sets out to contact Naomi. Set in England,
Invisible Threads is full of British slang and flavor and features characters who have no qualms about using profanity liberally. At times, the depiction of teenagers' hopelessness in the face of family dysfunction and social pressure to enter uncomfortable romantic and sexual relationships is dishearteningly vivid. However, in this intriguing study of two young women of succeeding generations, the major characters are sympathetically developed and multidimensional, and both Naomi and Carrie-Anne are able to see beyond their immediate circumstances and reach out to key adults for help.
-Joyce Adams Burner, Hillcrest Library, Prairie Village, KS Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Gr. 8-11. Carrie Ann is determined to find her birth mother, Naomi, regardless of the pain it causes her family. With the support of best friends Gemma, Carl, and Matt, she heads for Naomi's hometown. Authors Annie Dalton and her adopted daughter, Maria, tell the story in alternating chapters alternately narrated by Carrie Ann and Naomi. Carrie Ann's sections relay far-flung emotions: an insatiable need to find her birth mother and a quantifiable love of her adoptive one; her idealized image of Naomi and the reality of her contentious relationship with the mother who raised her; and the fear of finding Naomi while possibly losing her adoptive mom. Naomi's chapters reveal the circumstances of Carrie Ann's birth: the alcohol-induced liaison with Carrie Ann's father, her surprise pregnancy, the loving preparation she makes for Carrie Ann's arrival, and her decision to give her daughter to adoptive parents. It's a sad yet validating story, one with all-too-human, authentically drawn teenagers and adults. A welcome, unusual view of teen motherhood.
Frances BradburnCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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