Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2015
400 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
An Appalachian summer walks the line between toxic and intoxicating in this debut novel about first loves, broken hearts, and moonshine.
Luisa "Lulu" Mendez has just finished her final year of high school in a small Virginia town, determined to move on and leave her job at the local junkyard behind. So when her father loses her college tuition money, Lulu needs a new ticket out.
Desperate for funds, she cooks up the (illegal) plan to make and sell moonshine with her friends. Quickly realizing they're out of their depth, they turn to Mason, a local boy who's always seemed like a dead end. As Mason guides Lulu through the secret world of moonshine, it looks like her plan might actually work. But can she leave town before she loses everything?
My Best Everything is Lulu's letter to Mason--but it a love letter, an apology, or a good-bye?
"Written as Lulu's letter to Mason, this is an impressive debut of last summers and first loves, set against the backdrop of faded rural grandeur. Suggest to fans of Sarah Dessen looking for tough-as-nails heroines, enduring friendships, and romance with a side of grit." - Booklist
"Lulu narrates the story in second-person, as a confessional of sorts to Mason, and readers will race to turn the pages as it becomes apparent that Lulu's gamble may result in the destruction of the people she cares about the most. A wholly original and most satisfying debut." - School Library Journal
"...Tomp's descriptions of small-town Virginia life, a blend of haunting beauty and impoverishment, are forceful." - Publishers Weekly
"Despite stumbles, Tomp's smooth prose marks her as a writer with a future." - Kirkus
This information about My Best Everything was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Roxyanne Young
Sarah Tomp lives in San Diego, California with her husband and three children. She has an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
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