I’ve read a few of Nina LaCour’s previous books, so I didn’t hesitate to begin reading her newest release. I didn’t go into this book knowing what to expect other than some good writing, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the story takes place on a farm in California that has a very commune/hippy feel, with cabins for workers to live in and kids running around learning from real life experiences and in a makeshift classroom, and ghosts that dance in the fields at dusk. The descriptions of the farmhouse and the day-to-day life of the characters was enchanting, even the sparse cabins and days of toiling in the sun made me wish that I could spend some time living in the world created within this novel.
Mila, the main character and narrator of Watch Over Me, hasn’t had an easy life and it is clear that she is fighting some internal battles over the course of this story. She’s still a teenager, but she has had to look out for herself and her mom for a lot of her life so far and has lost pretty much everyone that she has ever called family. Her place at the farm seems to be the classroom teaching one particular young boy who has a rocky past she can relate to, though there are also times that she helps in other areas, such as going to the local market and selling goods that are grown on the farm.
In many ways, it seems like the farm is the perfect place for Mila to work through some of what has happened in her past, something that isn’t revealed to the reader until later in the book. Mila often thinks about the terrible thing she has done and spends some time internally battling with whether she is good, even though she may have done a bad thing and whether she belongs among the others at the farm. I really liked how Mila saw ghosts and knew she had something to learn from them, though she wasn’t sure what, and then she realizes that others at the farm can see the ghosts, too, and that they are something to be curious about rather than something to be scared of.
If I were to choose one main theme of this book that really stuck with me, I suppose it would be along these lines–that just because someone has a past, it doesn’t mean that they need to be afraid of it. I think Mila and the other characters in this book illustrated that quite well and that this is an important books for teens and adults to read. This isn’t just a fun story or a ghost story, it holds a lesson if you’re willing to dig a little deeper.
Review of a Digital Advance Reading Copy
This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Penguin Group
Content Analysis:
Profanity/Language: 2 religious exclamations; 2 mild obscenities; 2 scatological words; 4 F-Word derivatives.
Violence/Gore: Mention of grandparents having died in car accident; ghosts are talked about casually and are mentioned and seen multiple times throughout the book, most of the time they are portrayed as kind and not creepy, though there are a few scenes where people seem somewhat frightened by them; a parent is mentioned to have died from an overdose; a minor cuts their finger and blood is described to be pooling and dripping in one brief scene; minors tell stories about things that scare them in one brief scene; a minor mentions that her mother’s boyfriend was like a wolf that ripped out her heart with his teeth; a bird flies into a window and falls dead and is mentioned to be buried in one brief scene; several brief descriptions of scary memories and flashbacks occur to a minor throughout the book; a man is briefly described to be in a burning house and is mentioned to be seen burning, with flames on his body and a minor is mentioned to make the decision not to help him though she knows he will end up dying; a young boy is described to get his foot caught between rocks while the ocean tide is coming in and there is a mention of dripping blood and the minor who saves him sees that she has tracked red footprints on the ground; a minor looks up information about what happens when a person dies in a fire; a brief scene occurs where a woman is told her boyfriend died in a house fire and the woman gets angry and briefly holds her daughter by the shoulders and shakes her; a brief scene occurs where an adult male uses earring to pierce a minor girls ears and some blood is mentioned.
Sex/Nudity: A minor girl and boy kiss in a brief scene; a mention is made of intimate moments between minors; a brief scene occurs where a minor hears a teenage couple having what she assumes is sex, mention of bed springs groaning and imagining the couple being nude and what might be happening between the couple; a teen girl is described to touch herself briefly in a sexual way while thinking of an intimate moment between a couple; a teen couple is mentioned to meet each other in the shower to take a shower together; a minor girl kisses another girl in a non-sexual way; 2 teen girls are mentioned to bathe together in a non-sexual way.
Mature Subject Matter:
Abandonment; abuse; trauma; ghosts.
Alcohol / Drug Use:
Minors drink wine; a parent is mentioned to have overdosed on drugs; adults are mentioned to drink wine, beer, liquor in a social setting and be obviously drunk; a man and woman are described to be drunk in a brief scene.
