Monty, Erin and B.J. have been friends since they were young, but their relationships begin to strain as teenagers when both their choices and circumstances cause their lives to diverge. Following time in juvenile detention, Monty must adapt to life at home with a less than present father. Erin, both Monty and B.J's rock, has chosen to go to boarding school and leave her family behind while B.J. is attempting to figure out her true identity. Though the friends feel like they are growing apart, the stories in Late Lights show just how connected they are.

In progressive chapters, almost linked short stories, Weiss pieces together the lives of Monty, Erin and B.J, gradually exposing the details of their histories. Late Lights starts with Monty's stay in juvenile detention, which is hauntingly accurate, and seamlessly weaves into B.J.'s struggle with gender identity. Bouncing back, Weiss examines Erin's decision to leave for boarding school, followed by Monty's first days at home - connecting the characters to one another at each point.

In 123 pages, Weiss is able to develop her characters more than some authors can in 400. Late Lights is a gorgeous example of the powerful storytelling that can be packed into the limited space of a novella and Kara Weiss is certainly one to watch.

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Late Lights by Kara Weiss is a short fictional novel told in short story form. Each chapter is told by a different narrator, but all of the narrators are connected in various ways.

Late Lights

Monty is in and out of juvie, and is struggling to get his life back on track. It would be much easier for him if his father was a little more helpful.

BJ is a wreck. . . she’s in denial about her self image and could use some good friends.

And Erin is trying to run away from it all.

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Late Lights is a novella-length book that reads like a collection of linked short stories about three childhood friends, Monty, B.J., and Erin, who are trying to figure out their relationships with each other in their late teenage years. Monty has been in and out of juvenile detention for years, B.J. is a sexually confused tomboy who can’t come to terms with her changing body, and Erin is struggling to figure out how her wrong-side-of-the-tracks friends fit into her privileged life.

“For years the three of them did everything together. Past the point when even they know they were not at all the same kids they had been. They’d grown up, and they’d grown apart.”

We first meet Monty during one of his stints in juvie, and reading about his experience was a harsh awakening to the realities of life in juvenile detention. The conditions the boys there live under seem very cruel, and I empathized with Monty’s desire to turn his life around, become someone his deadbeat dad could be proud of, and grow up to be the kind of adult that has an education and listens to NPR.

When Monty gets of out juvie, he meets B.J. at her house, where an interaction between them leads B.J. to later commit a horrible act of self violence. One of the things I really liked about this novella, especially in B.J.’s sections, was Weiss’s tendency to leave some things unsaid; I like that she treats her readers as adults who can read between the lines. I also think her reluctance to explicitly describe B.J.’s problems reflects the girl’s inability to understand or vocalize her own emotions.

Later, Erin must deal with the fallout of an affair with her Ivy League track & field coach. She decides to transfer to a different college, and B.J. visits to help Erin move out of her dorm. Although their friendship goes back ages, Erin can’t help but notice how badly B.J., with her neon-patched DaKine backpack, sticks out in the landscape of Patagonia messenger bags.

“No one tells you the rules change — that certain things are conditional, that they simply expire — that certain friendships have a shelf life. I’d crossed an invisible boundary and there was no way to take it back.”

I would have liked to see the characters relate — or try to relate — to each other more. We know they have been friends since childhood and now their lives have gone all kinds of different ways, but in an odd way they don’t really seem to care about each other in the moment or try to help each other through difficult situations. For example, although Erin and B.J. are supposed to be great friends, Erin never asks B.J. about her injury, and the girls don’t really talk about Erin’s situation as she’s leaving school. I wanted something deeper from them.

I also would have liked to learn more about her characters’ motivations for some of their actions — why did Monty steal a car, how did Erin justify sleeping with her coach and taking the coach’s wife’s history class? However, I think this lack of detail is a limitation of the form; although I would have liked to know more, Weiss manages to convey a lot in 123 pages. Aside from these issues, I thought Late Lights was a very good novella. The writing is strong, and Weiss does a good job of putting the reader inside her characters’ heads. For such a short book (I read it in two hours), it packs a punch.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

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This slim volume of five interconnected vignettes offers a portrait of Boston teens that is heartbreaking, disturbing, and impossible to ignore.

Weiss' stories follow three friends -- Monty, who opens the volume with his stay at a juvenile detention center; followed by B.J., a young woman struggling with her body's change and the implications of it; and Erin, who escaped to boarding school but yearns for the easy friendship she used to have with Monty and B.J.

As I started, I was apprehensive these stories would be horrible for horror's sake; that Weiss would pull out every stereotype to offer shorthand to mood. Instead, I found her characters to be real, complicated teenagers, who stumble and trip over their emotions, their relationships. My heart broke over and over again as Monty, B.J., and Erin collided, moved by their past friendship but unsure now that adolescence and adult experiences push them past childhood, each nursing real hurts and injuries, physical and emotional.

While there's an urban feel to the stories, they aren't particularly 'Boston' in feel, which is fine. Place in this case isn't what shapes these teenagers and their lives. It's the adult who've failed them, the hard lessons learned against their will, the mistakes they keep making.

Weiss' writing style is brisk but evocative; her description of life in a juvenile detention center made my skin crawl and my stomach heave. Without spelling things out, she evokes the tension and drama of teenage desire and fear as well as the heavy weight of what is unsaid. There's only 120 pages or so to this book but the stories have heft and weight.

I was reminded a bit of Skins, the British show about teenagers -- both make me so uncomfortable having to acknowledge the realities so many teens face! Those who enjoy stories about young adults that aren't all insta-love and dystopias will enjoy this volume. ( )