Living with Jackie Chan by Jo Knowles (review)

Josh may have openly bragged about his one-hour stand with Ellie in Jumping Off Swings (BCCB 9/09), but inwardly, he’s disgusted with his behavior and haunted by its aftermath, so much so that he can’t face returning to his high school and decides to spend his senior year with his karate-obsessed bachelor uncle, Larry. Larry genuinely believes in the character-building principles he has his karate students recite, and while Josh is grateful for Larry’s willingness to give him a home, he is both attracted to and put off by his uncle’s perpetual good cheer and earnest dorkiness. Josh has a long way to go, however, to work through his guilt and grief, especially at two o’clock every morning when the baby in the apartment above him starts crying and reminds him that he, too, has a son somewhere out there. Enshrouded in shame, he struggles with his feelings for Stella, a girl who lives in the same apartment building; she is in the clutches of an overly possessive boyfriend, but Josh doesn’t feel he deserves a girlfriend after the way he treated Ellie. With dexterous character and relationship drafting, Knowles pulls Josh’s parents through their own reactions to Josh’s mistakes to a fresh start, and Josh is credibly resentful in his initial understanding that his absence seems to be the catalyst for their healing. Stella’s damsel-in-distress persona is a bit clichéd, but Knowles makes it work for Josh’s character arc as he slowly learns what it means to treat someone, especially a damaged, vulnerable someone, with integrity. Real grace comes through Larry, however, whose goodness, couched as it is in genial goofiness, helps Josh move from silent but perpetual self-recrimination to ownership of his faults and forgiveness. Continuing from Jumping Off Swings, Knowles traces the ripple effect of Josh’s fateful action; here she shows how it leads to necessary and positive change for Josh and his family.