Set in the coal mines of Kentucky in the '90s, Robert Gipe's Trampoline is a compelling and emotional bildungsroman that is destined to become an Appalachian classic and a mainstay of the Appalachian Studies syllabus. The novel, which is brilliantly illustrated, is very bleak at times, but never becomes depressing. I rooted for Dawn Jewell from the first page and believed she would triumph in the end; this conviction carried me through all of her setbacks, disappointments, and dangers. I laughed a lot, especially over the language and dialogue, which is spot on. The only thing that made me want to cry is that Dawn is not really a fictional character; there are many Dawns in Appalachia, and almost 20 years after the time of Trampoline, these kids are up against poverty, broken families, terrible adult influences, and underfunded/ineffectual schools, plus social media bullying, fracking, and the meth plague. Dawn seems so very real because she is real.

As with every great American coming-of-age tale, we join Dawn just as she is making the choices that will determine the course of her life. Will she become an activist like her Mamaw or choose the self-preservation of silence? Will she be courageous enough to let a boy into her life? Will she choose education over crime and controlled substances? Will she get out of Kentucky or will she stay?

Gipe's treatment of Dawn's first love with Willet, the DJ, is phenomenal: it is disappointing and realistic and deeply moving all at once. "Baby Steps" is a sensible rule for any relationship when you've been through as much trauma as Dawn has, and Willet is mellow and respectful enough to understand.

I loved it when Dawn matured enough to understand that the environmentalists and miners are all one big family, all loving the mountains, all struggling to survive and preserve their home and way of life. This is why there are no easy answers to the issues surrounding coal, and why there never will be any easy answers. ( )

There are the books you like, and the books you love, and then there are the ones you want to hold to your heart for a minute after you turn the last page. Trampoline is one of those—not just well written, which it is; and not just visually appealing, which the wonderfully deadpan black-and-white drawings make sure of; but there is something deeply lovable about it, an undertow of affection you couldn’t fight if you wanted to. Or I couldn’t, anyway. Coming-of-age stories are supposed to do that, aren’t they?—make you love their young heroes or heroines, no matter how difficult they might be. And most, I find, don’t.

But Gipe has done it with 15-year-old Dawn Jewell, growing up at the end of the '90s in a poor Kentucky mining town with a sprawling (in more ways than one) dysfunctional family, as well as loyal and not-so-loyal friends, drugs and moonshine, strip mining activism, car wrecks, Black Flag on the radio, and a sympathetic DJ. And Gipe deftly avoids every single cliché that could trip such a story up, which includes having a pitch-perfect ear for dialect and making it into something marvelous. There are arrests, fights, bad reputations—"When they showed up, it was like it started raining washing machines. Things got broke."—and fierce scraps of beauty pulled from anywhere Dawn can find them. Trampoline is a wonder. It’s not out until April, but you can catch a couple of chapters on the publisher’s website. ( )