Gravity (Young Adult Novels)
Fifteen-year-old Ellie comes from an Orthodox Jewish family that is straining at the edges. Her older sister is planning her escape; her mother’s commitment is frayed by her need for self-expression. Ellie herself discovers a different world when she spends the summer with her liberal Bubbe learning to swim and developing a crush on a neighbor, Lindsay. When Ellie returns to Toronto, she tries to contact Lindsay, who ignores her at first, but soon their afternoons together turn sexual. Lieberman’s involving story would have plenty of plot even without the lesbian angle (the sexuality is more than suggestive, though hardly graphic). The individual characters are so interesting that more about each would be welcome. But Ellie’s strong first-person narration, authentic in its wondering, carries the day as she struggles to fit this new piece of herself into a religion that doesn’t accept who she is at her core. One caveat: the girl on the cover in the sexy school uniform is apparently Lindsay, but those not reading closely will assume it’s what Orthodox students wear. Hardly. Grades 10-12. --Ilene Cooper