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Notes on a Near-Life Experience

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At the age of fifteen, Mia is trying to make sense of life. Everything and everyone around her seem to be changing. Her parents are getting separated, her brother is rebelling, and her brother's best friend is finally returning her affection. What could possibly happen next?

Quirky vignettes with quirky titles effectively tell her tale - sometimes serious, sometimes humorous, always poignant, these stories includes pepperoni, prom, and a person from Peru. My favorite vignettes include Coming of Age, What I Want to Be When I Grow Up, and Living Dead Girl.

I really enjoyed Mia's sense of self and her honest take on things. She is able to take the good with the bad, the happy with the sad, and she has a good head on her shoulders. I hope that others will take note of Olivia Birdsall's debut.

Olivia Birdsall's NOTES ON A NEAR-LIFE EXPERIENCE tells of teen Mia, whose world crumbles when her father suddenly leaves them. With a mother who reacts by burying herself in work and a brother's best friend who finally notices her, Mia has her hands full adjusting to a world of new changes.

A lot of YA fiction is full of whiny, self-absorbed main characters that complain about everything. Fortunately, this author's voice is quite different, and rang clear through the main character, Mia. The story deals with serious issues without making them too dramatic and heavy, and uses just the right amount of humor. The dialog and insights were too grown-up at times, especially for a character that seems to keep her head in the sand. I would also have liked to see a more definitive ending, with a few loose ends tied up. Other than that, this was a refreshing YA read.

Mia's father works all the time and is never home. Mia and her mother, little sister Keatie and older brother Allen are used to it. So why does everything fall apart when dad moves out? Fifteen-year-old Mia has had lots of experience with friends from single-parent homes, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

However, knowing that it's not the end of the world and actually coping with it are two different things. So Mia doesn't deal. Her mother is suddenly working all the time now, and Keatie is watching old home movies over and over again. One day, both parents forget to pick up Keatie at her violin lesson, so Mia gets a friend to drive her over there.

Allen tries to take care of all of them, but soon Mia realizes he has been cutting classes. Then she finds lots of empty liquor bottles. Is it her responsibility to take care of her brother?

To make matters worse, Mia's dad comes home from Peru with a new sexy girlfriend named Paloma. A disaster of a family birthday party shows Mia that ignoring these problems is only making them worse.

But when she and her siblings attend therapy each week, Mia tries to hide everything. Talking about the situation would be admitting there's a problem, and she thinks this is merely an adjustment period. After all, other things are going well in her life right now. Julian, Allen's best friend and her lifetime crush (and a mighty fine kisser), asks HER to the prom. Also, she is on the varsity dance team and in charge of all the choreography.

Mia's best friend Haley is not too thrilled, though. She knows something is going on, but Mia won't talk to her about it and doesn't treat her well when they're together. Furthermore, Mia convinces Haley and Allen to go to the prom together when neither really wants to.

Soon Mia is barely holding it together. She tries to plan a romantic prom night, which proves to be too much for her family to handle. Allen's problems come out in force that night, though the resulting issues do compel the family to work through their difficulties together.

Divorce might be pretty common in families, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. Mia's struggles are realistic; in avoiding her problems she does what anyone else might do when faced with something similar. Readers of NOTES ON A NEAR-LIFE EXPERIENCE will find Mia an interesting and sympathetic character from first page to last.

--- Reviewed by Amy Alessio

You may think you've seen Olivia Birdsall's "Notes on a Near-Life Experience" before, but you'd be wrong.

15-year-old Mia thought she had a normal life, complete with an older brother, a much younger sister, a mom and a dad. The novel opens as Mia lists her family's rituals: dinner at 7, Friday date nights for mom and dad, Saturday cleaning, Jeopardy! Then her world falls apart. Dad leaves the family one afternoon and does not come back. Before long, he's living in his new condo with a hot Peruvian girlfriend he brought back from vacation. Mom works all the time. Older brother Allen begins drinking--at home, and at work, and all the time. Little sister Keatie is forgotten after violin lessons.

What makes "Notes on a Near-Life Experience" special is in the way it is told. This is a true slice-of-life novel told only from Mia's point of view. Her thoughts are presented in short, fragmented, non-linear chapters. We never learn, for example, how and why Allen begins drinking. We never discover why Dad is such a jerk. We may want to kick him, but Mia still loves him so his presentation is clouded. And, because Mia is a fifteen year old, the story of the divorce is intertwined with first love (Allen's best friend, Julian) and problems with a best friend.

"Notes on a Near-Life" Experience is a beautifully written gem of a novel, uniquely told. It's a great choice for discussing narration with Junior High students and is appropriate for readers of Young Adult fiction as young as 10.