You Are My Only (review)

At fourteen, Sophie is starting to get fed up with her isolated life as the overprotected, homeschooled daughter of a single mother, and she illicitly develops a friendship with her new neighbor, Joey, and his guardian aunts. Her narration alternates with that of Emmy, a young woman who suffers a breakdown and hospitalization after her baby daughter disappears from the family backyard. Warmed by the affection of Joey’s family, an emboldened Sophie investigates her mother’s private papers and realizes that her life has been built on lies, a discovery that brings her story into conjunction with Emmy’s. This has a very different style from classic child-abduction melodramas such as Mazer’s Taking Terri Mueller (BCCB 6/83) and Ehrlich’s Where It Stops, Nobody Knows (BCCB 1/89); Kephart’s writing is a thing of beauty in its own right, and Sophie’s story earns its frequent and apt allusions to Rapunzel with its own fairy-tale quality. Emmy’s story is also compelling, but it’s effective mainly as a suspenseful counterpoint to Sophie’s journey toward recognition and reunion. There’s a Sleeping Beauty element as well in Sophie’s gradual awakening to the possibilities of life beyond her mother’s restrictions, and Joey’s aunts make excellent not-quite-fairy godmothers; Joey himself, whose wooing starts with a game of catch, is an appealingly accessible handsome prince. Readers will eat up this realistic variant of the youthful fantasy about finally finding one’s real parents and being properly appreciated.