How Ya Like Me Now (review)

Eddie has become the supreme enabler since his mom disappeared into a bottle of OxyContin following the death of his father. After a year of holding everything together, Eddie has mixed feelings about living with his artsy aunt and uncle and his cousin Alex while his mother goes into rehab; he wants to enjoy being a kid again, but he's not sure if he can make it work in the funky experimental school in downtown Boston where Alex has already established a firm place as a lovable screwup. Halpin ably captures the complex emotions of a boy trying to find his way through traumatic circumstances, particularly the guilt he feels about hating the mother who refused to share his grief, loved getting high more than she loved him, and still uses him as a motivator for getting her life back together. The new school environment is also a place of confusion for Eddie; it is a place where the scholarly diligence he uses as a hedge against emotional chaos is acknowledged and even rewarded by his fellow students, but it is also the first time he has had to deal with an urban racial mix where he is the minority. Alex emerges as a fully imagined character in his own right—despite the fact that he leads with his hormones and has some academic deficits, he resents not being taken seriously for the gifts he does have. The boys' slowly developing friendship is delicately and credibly handled as they forge an understanding of each other's needs outside of well-meaning adult interventions. Everything comes together with a solid click here: readers will find the setting of an alternative school modeled on a corporation intriguing, the secondary characters recognizable without being stereotyped, and the plotting creative and well balanced.