Thirteen-year-old Zavier Beckham is an average teen living in Memphis. He has great parents and a quirky best friend named Cole. He’s happy, and he thinks his life is totally normal… until an FBI agent shows up and informs Zavier he was stolen as an infant and sold to an adoption agency.
Now his biological parents want him back.
Forced to confront his distant past, Zavier faces an uncertain future. He may be taken from the only home he’s known by parents who are strangers living in Chicago. He may have to deal with a brother who hates and torments him. He meets Brendan, an older boy who offers him friendship and wakens a strong, unsettling attraction in Zavier. Brendan has secrets of his own, and he’ll either be the one ray of light in Zavier’s tense situation or the last straw that breaks Zavier under the pressure.
This story was a joy to read through the eyes of thirteen year old Zavier. This is probably a conflicting thing to write but I enjoyed this story so much that even with the difficult topic, I breezed through it and wanted more stories by this author.
The tone and feel of the story was easy to follow, and this would definitely be interesting to a wide audience. I want to share this with my children (although the only reader in the group is a little too young to understand the complexity of this storyline, so I will be waiting until she is older).
Zavier is in an almost impossible situation. His life was going very smoothly, with an amazing and close relationship with his parents, until he finds out he was stolen as a baby and put up for adoption. He still has immense loyalty to his adoptive parents, and has been raised in a way that he has empathy for his birth parents as well. As a thirteen year old, he doesn’t have much choice in how things go, but he does have the choice in how to react to the outcome.
His new friend Brendan seems to be the only respite Zavier gets from the constant reminder of how much his life has changed, and how not-normal things really are for him now. The only problem with their relationship, is Zavier is realising he has a crush, and that adds another layer of worry to his already intensely complicated life. Once Brendan’s secret is out, it is even more confusing for young Zavier to grasp, and it becomes the catalyst to the reaction one might expect when someone is completely overwhelmed and has been trying to hold it in.
All sides of this story came from a place of love, loyalty and the intention to cause the least amount of hurt in an impossible situation. I really appreciated how everyone wanted to do their best and cared deeply for the future outcome for Zavier.
Reading this through Zavier’s point of view narrowed the focus down to a few key points without making the emotional aspect too messy and weighty. The issues were simplified to how Zavier was coping, and what he was trying to achieve with his actions.
A warning from the blurb. BJ, Zavier’s brother, struggles the most with Zavier being found. This comes out as bullying behaviour, so reader beware.
Overall I highly recommend this story and I have plans to read this author’s other work. I’m really glad I picked this up.
A review copy was provided for an honest opinion
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