July 3, 2023
A white and Jewish teen struggles to cultivate her own identity after her father is imprisoned in this striking verse memoir by Castle (All His Breakable Things, for adults). Thirteen-year-old Jiordan Castle’s father is arrested for involvement in “a conspiracy to defraud the United States” the summer before her freshman year of high school. Through lyrical text, Castle highlights the pain felt and challenges faced by her two older half sisters, her mother, and herself after the FBI raids her home searching for her father. Carefully worded poems depict Castle’s everyday insecurities—such as high school conflicts and difficulty navigating her first romantic relationship—alongside concerns about her father’s safety in prison (“In movies they say don’t drop the soap./ They say sleep with one eye open”). Though rendered primarily in verse, the novel features varied narrative formats, including redacted poems that emphasize the absences Castle feels in her life: “I’m trying to hide this story in plain sight. I’m trying to fill in the blanks.” This moving account is an intense meditation on mental health and the prison system, as observed by Castle, who, according to an author’s note, crafted this story “for the other children of
prisoners.” Ages 12–up. Agent: Ashley Lopez, Waxman Literary.