Joanne O'Sullivan

I couldn't help but compare this to Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, which is not particularly fair, but maybe inescapable. Both follow teenage girls during and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. O'Sullivan's novel is written for the YA market, and while it is a cut above a lot of the dreck being produced, it's certainly no StB. That said, I did enjoy Evangeline's story as she and her family escape Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana right before the storm and end up in Atlanta for several months. Katrina and its destruction offered a strong grounding for what is essentially a coming of age story, as Evangeline navigates high school, first love, family dynamics, and longing for home.

I received this book as an Early Reviewers copy back in 2017. I don't know why it took me so long to get around to it, but I'm glad I finally did.… (mehr)

Set in the Bayou area of Louisiana, this is the story of Evangeline who has grown up in an era that was colonised by her French ancestors ( indeed she calls her great grandmother Mamere and speaks to her only in French) and the area ids filled with her cousins and her history. Her mother owns a very successful diner, her sister is a little wayward and her father is content to sit back and be the rock of the family. Then events happen to throw the whole of E 's world into chaos , the biggest of these being Hurricane Katrina which destroys not only their house, but her mother's livelihood . It also means that the family are forced to separate across America as different relatives take in victims all over the country, and this also happens to her best friends and the boys she thinks she loves called Tru. He has his own family issues and also when separated from him, E learns he is supposedly going out with a cousin of her sister's friend. With her father's fishing vessel also destroyed , he is forced to take a job away from his wife and E must chose between her parents. On top of all this, her beloved Mamere is getting frailer and eventually passes away.
A brilliant book that seems to capture the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina on not only the physical area of the Bayou, but also onto its family spirit.… (mehr)

Beautifully written story about home and how we keep it in our heart. Set during and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005/2006, the story centers around Evangeline, who on her 16th birthday has to evacuate her small rural Louisiana town of Bayou Perdu as Katrina approaches. When the town is wiped out, and residents are not allowed back in for weeks, as they have to wait for FEMA trailer permits, she and her parents, older sister, and grandmother "Mamere" have to stay much longer than planned in Atlanta with her aunt. Evangeline tries to fit in in her new school, and is forming a close relationship with a boy named Tru whom she had met briefly back home before the storm, but always she longs to go back to the bayou. Her parents are really struggling--dad, a shrimp boat man, finds it hard to get other work, while her mother appears to want to stay forever in the city in her new persona as an urban woman. Evangeline's close relationship with her grandmother helps her get through, as things get rougher in her parents' relationship and she loses Tru when he leaves without word. Will she ever get back home? Will she ever find Tru again? I really liked the descriptions of the bayou and how Evangeline felt when on the water, and the strong sense of place that was evoked by the novel. It also had a nice slow-developing romance.… (mehr)