My Best Everything

January 12, 2015
Seventeen-year-old Lulu Mendez cannot wait to leave sleepy Dale, Va., for the University of San Diego. Although she loves her job as a “junkyard girl” at Sal’s Salvage and will miss her best friend Roni—who is intent on marrying her boyfriend, Bucky, and starting a family—Lulu believes she has never belonged in her agoraphobic mother’s hometown. When Lulu’s father’s business dealings fall through, her college dreams are threatened until a chance (and potentially lucrative) meeting with Mason Malone, an older friend of Bucky’s who is struggling with sobriety, family estrangement, and his girlfriend’s death. In epistolary fashion, Tomp (Red, White, and Blue Good-bye) chronicles the fateful summer between high school and college when Lulu, Roni, Bucky, and Mason make moonshine together in a moneymaking scheme. When summer ends with Lulu’s college goal in sight, Mason moves dangerously close to his old life while the others discover that their futures are in jeopardy. Surprises are few, but Tomp’s descriptions of small-town Virginia life, a blend of haunting beauty and impoverishment, are forceful. Ages 15–up. Agent: Catherine Drayton, InkWell Management.

December 15, 2014
A Virginia teen tries to pay for college-and escape home-by brewing moonshine in Tomp's debut for teens. Lulu Mendez has just graduated high school and can't wait to leave her junkyard job, her agoraphobic mother, her mostly absent father, and even her best friend, Roni, to attend college in San Diego. When her father loses her tuition in a business venture, Lulu steals a still left at the junkyard and enlists the help of Roni, Roni's boyfriend, Bucky, and local bad-boy Mason to make and sell moonshine. Mason's family has long dealt in the trade; in fact, he is a recovering alcoholic who has distanced himself from his roots. Nevertheless, he joins in this somewhat improbable venture and sees it to its catastrophic close. The second-person narration begins as an interesting device-Lulu is writing to Mason, but why?-but becomes a liability as the story progresses. Lulu's emotions become specifically told, not shown, especially regarding her family and her past, so readers can't fully invest in her as a character. The story takes too long to develop and the ending wraps up a little too neatly, moreover, and Appalachian stereotypes abound. Despite stumbles, Tomp's smooth prose marks her as a writer with a future. (Fiction 14-18)

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November 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Luisa "Lulu" Mendez dreams of leaving her dead-end small town behind. She cannot wait to immerse herself in the University of San Diego's biochemistry program in the fall. So she is devastated when her dad admits that he has lost her college funds in a bad investment. Lulu is determined to make her college dreams a reality, and when a confiscated distillery turns up at the junkyard where she and her best friend work, she sees it as a bit of serendipitous luck. Although Lulu is not a party girl, she is aware that the moonshine business, illegal or not, is still thriving in the rural mountains of Virginia. Roni and Bucky do not take much convincing to go along with her plan-some extra cash will hurry her friends' wedding date along-and through some creative paperwork, the still disappears from the impound lot where it sits awaiting a trial. Lulu has recently met Mason Malone, whose family wealth comes from generations of "shining." There's an instant attraction between the two, and although Mason is a recovering alcoholic who has sworn off the family business, he reluctantly agrees to share his knowledge with the three 18-year-olds so that they can operate the still without blowing themselves up. As the still starts producing and the enterprising friends see the money coming in, college no longer seems out of reach-but will she be able to walk away from Mason at the end of the summer? And will her unorthodox college fund scheme mean his destruction as he edges closer and closer to his addiction? Lulu narrates the story in second-person, as a confessional of sorts to Mason, and readers will race to turn the pages as it becomes apparent that Lulu's gamble may result in the destruction of the people she cares about the most. A wholly original and most satisfying debut.-Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2015
Grades 9-12 Lulu Mendez has one short summer left before she can escape to college in California and leave her small Virginia hometown in the dust. But when her irresponsible father loses her college tuition in a poor investment, she has to pay her own way out. Even good-girl Lulu knows about the lucrative, illegal local moonshine business and recruits a few friends to help her distill; out of their depth, they turn to Mason Malone, recovering alcoholic and former heir to a moonshine kingdom. Reluctantly, Mason agrees to help (to keep them from exploding the still and killing themselves) and Lulu, just as reluctantly (and mercurially) finds herself entangled with him. Written as Lulu's letter to Mason, this is an impressive debut of last summers and first loves, set against the backdrop of faded rural grandeur. Suggest to fans of Sarah Dessen looking for tough-as-nails heroines, enduring friendships, and romance with a side of grit.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)