From the author of Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend comes a novel about a teenage boy coping with the rupture of his family by viewing his mother in an unusual light.
... highly readable ... Dicks nails Michael’s inner thoughts and dialogue, and his portrayals of his relationships (with his siblings and the psychologist in particular) are refreshingly sweet. The 'other mother' conceit wears thin after a while, mostly because Michael’s story is compelling enough, but it takes little away from this engaging novel.
Dicks doesn’t seem concerned with medical accuracy, but it is doubtful that readers will mind too much as they laugh, cry, and cheer their way through this touching coming-of-age tale.
... wistful and quietly moving ... Though none of Michael’s secrets, or even the central mystery of his mother’s identity, hold much suspense, Michael’s appealingly vulnerable first-person narration and his painful missteps through the minefield of adolescent social situations will endear him to readers. Dicks’s bighearted, generous novel makes a strong case for empathy and for forgiveness—both toward others and toward oneself.
