The Half-Orphan’s Handbook by Joan F. Smith (review)

“Dads like mine did not die by suicide, and yet my dad had.” So says sixteen-year-old Lila, who, along with her younger brother, is reluctantly off to “grief camp” the summer after her father’s death. There she mingles with other kids surviving bereavement, undergoes group therapy, and starts a complicated romance with fellow camper Noah; she also gradually discovers family secrets about her father’s struggles with gambling and depression. Lila’s narration is raspingly, piercingly authentic in its exploration of the particular grief wrought by suicide, “the action of someone in such desperate pain that they are difficult to blame, ” but also the action that tinges every memory of her father with the realization that he would rather have been dead. There’s also credibility in the slow, sometimes angry discovery of the ways in which his suicide wasn’t unexpected. The camp is less successfully depicted, though, with little dimension to secondary characters or dynamics and with talky scenes that confuse the tone, and the sensational yet perplexing twist behind Noah’s grief undermines rather than adds to the main story. The keen understanding of Lila’s anguish, however, will still resonate with many young readers. An author’s note discusses the biographical elements of the story and includes suicide helpline numbers.