Take Me With You When You Go by David Levithan (review)

When his older sister Bea takes off, fifteen-year-old Ezra isn’t entirely surprised but he is hurt—he always thought if she left their abusive mother and stepfather, she’d take him along. Bea, for her part, does leave an email address and the two exchange messages, with Bea explaining that she was going to find someone who could help them both. Her plans, however, go wildly off course when she learns a devastating secret, and the siblings are left figuring out where and with whom they can find safety. The book comprises emails mostly between Bea and Ezra, portraying their bond with depth and emotional nuance; the dual voices make clear their love for each other but also reveal how differently they see their relationship and how their codependency was formed out of the suffocating isolation that comes with surviving abuse. Unfortunately, the detailed emails begin to lose their authenticity as they recount extended paragraphs of dialogue; Bea’s telling of her relationship with a sage college student is particularly bogged down and clichéd. Still, there’s absorption in this story about two siblings breaking away from the adults who have failed them and finding their individual agency.