Book Review - Kendra by Coe Booth

Have you ever felt like just because your parents made a mistake, you were somehow destined to make the same mistake? That's how Kendra feels, only it's really complicated. Kendra is fourteen, which is the same age her mom was when she had her. The thing is, Kendra is her mom's mistake. She's grown up living with her grandmother while her mom finished high school, college, and now graduate school. Her mom's finally received her PhD and now Kendra's wondering when she's actually going to live with her. In the meantime, Nana's kept a close watch over Kendra, determined not to let her granddaughter repeat her mother's mistake.

But things are complicated. Kendra's never really shared more than a kiss with a guy, but now there are two guys at school that seem interested. There's Darnell, the shy, nice guy who works with Kendra in the stage group... and then there's Nashawn, the hot baseball star her cousin Adonna's crushing on, whose locker is right next to Kendra's.

When Kendra's mom accepts a job teaching in the city, Kendra assumes that she will finally live with her mom. And then her mom get a studio apartment; there's no way she could live there too. Disappointed, enraged, and lonely, Kendra turns to one of these guys, with results that disappoint Nana, but bring her much closer to her mother.

Like Coe Booth's first book Tyrell, winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction last year, this is a gripping, realistic, and sometimes emotional book with an urban setting.

* * * *
(Four out of five stars)

RIYL: Tyrell, anything by Walter Dean Myers or Paul Volponi, the Kimani Tru series