Anywhere but Here by Tanya Lloyd Kyi (review)

To Cole, the small Canadian town of Webster is essentially a prison, and he can’t wait until he can graduate and escape. He’s already detached from his father, who’s a mostly sedentary and self-pitying drunk since the death of Cole’s mother, and Cole further cuts ties by breaking up with his longtime girlfriend, Lauren. Hoping to go to film school in Vancouver, he begins work on a short sample documentary for admission, all about the ways that Webster traps and limits its residents. As major changes happen with Lauren (who’s pregnant), his father (who’s suddenly getting married), and even Cole’s new no-strings girlfriend Hannah (who turns out to be much smarter than she pretends), he begins to realize that Webster may be more of a part of his life than he realized. The conviction that all their obstacles are situational drives many a teen to distant college, and Kyi perceptively explores the ways that this conviction is and isn’t true. Cole’s gradual understanding that he’s projected onto the town his frustrations and his isolation following his mother’s death credibly accrues (“I thought there were plenty of people in Webster wishing they could escape. It turns out I might be the only one”), and the book is unusually clear-eyed in its depiction of both the negatives and the positives of a close-knit small town. While Cole’s relationships are dramatic, there’s an underlying nuance to the dynamics and a pleasing lack of villainy to the characters, so events are emotional rather than melodramatic. Readers on the verge of flying the coop will empathize with both Cole’s restlessness and his ambivalence.