Coming-of-age

Leigh resembles a soft boiled egg that was dropped, but not cracked. Rigid to all appearances, but a whirled mess inside. Born two months early, her preemie status has been used to belittle her feelings time after time. When older sister Kai became sick with leukemia, things got worse. Money dried up, attention got refocused and the lack of both caused her to retreat further into her messy shell of doubt and guilt.
When Kai gets better and Leigh has finally made a real friend in Emily who moved to Mendocino with her mother, Leigh and Emily make plans to go to girl scout camp together, but those are derailed by Leigh's parents.
Next stop for the family is in another inland California town, where their father, Wade, has bought a graveyard. Leigh not only has to start over in a new school, she's lost her only friend and is stuck three (often more) afternoons a week handling sales of graves, headstones and funerals because Wade, while full of grand plans, is nearly useless when it comes to the death business. In fact, Leigh becomes more and more trapped by the whole death phenomenon.
When Dario, an illegal immigrant, arrives, he's a breath of fresh air, willing and able to spiff the place up, dig graves and comfort the bereaved. Despite her near terror of getting close to anyone, Leigh connects with him and in the process, learns to speak Spanish fairly well, but still resists his daily encouragement to do new things.
Elanor and her older brother Balin homeschoolers whose parents own Rivendell, a combined flower shop and funky lawn ornament establishment, enter Leigh and Kai's lives, but in markedly different ways. Kai is attracted to Balin, while Leigh is terrified (for reasons clear in the book) of making another friend even after numerous overtures by Elanor and nudges from Dario.
How everything shakes out so Leigh is able to feel like a kid instead of an ancient emotional prisoner, makes for a great read. This is an excellent first book and will appeal to many teens, especially those where turmoil and grief are part of their family dynamics. ( )

First, let's just deal with that cover, and then we'll get to the good stuff. The cover is terrible and Leigh not only doesn't look like that, she would never wear that outfit. It's also too cheerful and sunny for the content of the book. It probably sells books, but it's selling a different book than the one it's advertising.

That being said, I really, really liked this book. The prose is beautiful and Leigh's narrative voice is pitch-perfect. This is a lovingly-told narrative of grief and healing and growing up. When we meet Leigh, she's fourteen and her father has bought a cemetery in secret and moved the whole family away from the town in which Leigh and her sister Kai grew up. The novel follows Leigh until shortly after her sixteenth birthday. Those years are, for most of us, ones of great change and watching that change unfold in Leigh is both beautiful and painful. I don't want to say too much, because I want anyone who chooses to pick this book up to experience the journey for themselves. I'll just say that this is a lovely, quiet book full of deeply felt emotion and moments of sheer absurdity which keep it from becoming too dark and broody. ( )

Quirky teen Leigh sells graves at her family-owned cemetery because her father is simply too lazy to hire anyone, or do it himself. Her family is certainly eccentric and life with them is not always easy. However, when her best friend dies, her father hires a caretaker and things change, Leigh is forced to abandon many of her preconceived ideas to take chances on new things. This is a fun book to read with some interesting concepts woven into the storyline. ( )

Leigh's life has revolved around her older sister since her sister was diagnosed with cancer. Her mom has checked out and her dad has moved the family to the new graveyard he's just purchased.
Leigh works and works helping other people make their plans for burial, but she doesn't really deal with the grief she is going through.
When Dario is hired as the new groundskeeper, his thoughtfulness, concern, and supply of Yorks help her start to realize Leigh needs to care for and deserves to care for herself. ( )