Right as Rain

A family reels from the loss of their son and decides to start over in NYC. Mom is a hustler and is moving ahead with a new job in brain research. Dad is a hider. Daughter Rain wants her family to be the one in four that stays intact despite the loss of a child. She is also a runner and she is only eleven. The new setting means lots of changes for Rain and we get to watch her navigate in an urban setting with much more racial diversity than she was used to in Vermont. I appreciated the ways adults around her support and encourage her through her community service, running and writing poetry. Her poems are wonderful. This is also the second book I have read this month where the main character is reading "The One and Only Ivan," so I really want to move that title up on my TBR list. This will definitely appeal to readers dealing with grief and loss. Highly recommended.<br /><br />One of my favorites from Lindsey Stoddard. She has a new one coming out today, October 25th, entitled <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/60254220.The_Real_Deal" title="The Real Deal by Lindsey Stoddard" rel="noopener">The Real Deal</a>

Right as Rain certainly packs a punch. I would not recommend reading this book in public. Not only will you be actually laughing out loud, but also crying and sighing and a whole bunch of other things. And non reader humans find it weird when you do that by yourself with just a book in front of you. <br /><br />The main character in this book actually feels like a little girl without her being annoying. She made a lot of decision that I know I would have made when I was her age. The whole family felt entirely like real people trying to do their best. I think this will be a great book for younger readers, because it discusses serious topics without dumbing them down.

I will say up front, that Lindsey Stoddard’s sophomore novel RIGHT AS RAIN did not hit me with the same personal, emotional punch that her debut JUST LIKE JACKIE did. But boy, can Stoddard write. She wears her heart on her sleeve as a writer. As much as I adored JUST LIKE JACKIE, I think RIGHT AS RAIN may actually be better written and more tightly constructed.<br /><br />We know right away that a major theme of this story is going to be about the things we bury emotionally as Rain starts the story off with this early memory of her literally burying dresses in the yard when she was young because she refused to wear them. I thought this was a perfect visual to set up the theme of the story. It speaks metaphorically to the feelings she’s buried deep inside about losing her older brother Guthrie. In fact, every character in the story is burying something. <br /><br />As a big fan of JUST LIKE JACKIE, the structure of RIGHT AS RAIN felt familiar and Stoddard uses story elements in similar ways. In JUST LIKE JACKIE we have Robinson, baseball, auto mechanics, a grandfather with Alzheimer’s, and a mystery surrounding Robinson’s mother’s name. In RIGHT AS RAIN we have Rain, track, gardening, parents grieving the loss of a child, and a mystery surrounding Rain’s secret. I don’t point this out as a bad thing. It’s a comforting thing to me. It’s about Stoddard’s style and voice being recognizable. <br /><br />One of my favorite things about JUST LIKE JACKIE was the figurative language and RIGHT AS RAIN does not disappoint in this area either. Stoddard fills Rain’s narrative with perfect similes and metaphors that speak to Rain’s character. Rain grew up in rural Vermont and her father loves to garden so this is evident in the way she views situations around her. The voice is flawless and the style reminds me of Jenni Holm’s MAY AMELIA and TURTLE IN PARADISE in this way.<br /><br /><i>“All the streets are one way, so we drive down 151st and back up 152nd, and we have to double-park the van because cars are squeezed all the way down both sides of the street with just inches between them. You wouldn’t even plant seeds in a vegetable garden that close. That’s why there were seven years and one month between Guthrie and me. Dad says to have to give things space to grow.”</i> (This passage tells us so much about Rain’s observations in NYC, her relationship with Guthrie, and her father’s way of looking at things.) <br /><br /><i>“...both of our accents sound like twigs getting caught up in a weed whacker.”<br /><br />“...the dominoes men call out to him, Hector, dropping the H and hammering the ec like a tomato plant stake driving against rocky soil.”<br /><br />“I already stick out like a cucumber plant trying to survive in a potato patch.”<br /><br />“I can’t get my dad out of his room, and being in apartment number thirty-one makes me feel like an overwatered plant whose soil has no more air pockets and whose roots can’t breathe because they’re drowning.”<br /><br />“I wish she’d just cry so that I could cry too and it wouldn’t feel like we’re a retaining wall holding back soil that just wants to crumble out and is so tired of being packed in tight.”</i><br /><br />I also loved Stoddard's depiction of life inside a classroom. You can tell she has been a teacher because sometimes in children's literature, classrooms can feel so cookie cutter-like. In Rain's classroom, kids blurt out, they socialize, they chant and cheer, they show anger, they make fun of each other (as kids do), but they learn lessons and come together too. The activities they do felt like thoughtful projects. Rain was in very good hands in Mrs. Baldwin's class. <br /><br />I’m a big fan of Lindsey Stoddard. Her writing has a lot of heart and the kids I know that have read JUST LIKE JACKIE have loved it fiercely. I have no doubt that RIGHT AS RAIN will have a similar impact on kids, maybe even moreso. I can’t wait to read what she writes next!

Passable story about a young girl (and her parents), moving to Washington Heights from Vermont, trying to deal with the grief of her older brother's death, which is painfully slowly revealed in chapters entitled "That Night." What I liked about the book was Stoddard's vivid descriptions about the vibrant, diverse, multicultural neighborhood in New York City, so different from her previous life. Of course, there is the usual trope of being the new kid, trying to fit into a new place and school, while her parents' relationship is coming apart, especially her father. 2.5 stars, rounded up.

As an adult still experiencing heavy grief, this story helped. Rain is a young girl a lot of kids will relate to, but so is Frankie, Amelia, Ana, and even the adults in the book. Lindsey does an amazing job of telling a story, one that needs to be heard. She also does a great job of hitting on every single characters individuality without overdoing it. Preorder now for a February release. I promise you need this in your classrooms.

Rain is ending the school year in a new place. Her mother has taken a job in New York City, so the family moves from Vermont to start anew. <br /><br />Rain’s family is grieving the loss of her brother. Each family is dealing with the loss in a different manner. This is illustrated through the actions of each character. Rain narrates the story, but we get a well drawn family and how the loss of a child weighs heavy on everyone. <br /><br />I like how Rain is becoming socially aware and that she represents “other” in her neighborhood largely made up of Latino families. The friendships forged feel realistic. There is subtlety in the themes of the book and I found that refreshing.

I read this in one sitting and found it was a successful juggling of a wide array of intense emotional situations, complex characters, and adolescent relationships involving so many checked topics and themes that I doubted it could succeed. <br />But it did.<br />The story is set in motion when a grieving family leaves their sheltered, privileged Vermont existence behind to live in urban NYC. Not a New Yorker myself, I found the setting took on more character and heart than many books of that realm. I suspect those who are native to the area would connect even more so. The central sixth-grade character, Rain, has a voice that captures her many concerns and also hints at a degree of anxiety disprorger that predated their family's tragedy.<br />I loved the embedded literary reflections (Ivan the One and Only, Kwame Alexander's CROSSOVER) and the outstanding validation of sports in the lives of young girls. <br />This book came to me highly recommended but I did feel an immediate appeal to it, opting for other titles among the stack awaiting my attention. A library due date nudged me to get it read, and I'm happy I did. It feels like an important book for readers of any background or setting or current concerns, because it offers hope and rings true for the age of the central cast.

This book broke me multiple times. Most of us have experience with grief and it can be impossible to deal with. Now picture you're a kid and you're in a new place and your older brother is dead and it's your fault. How Rain is functioning as well as she is is an actual miracle. (And she's not doing particularly well, but she's not catatonic. She's going to her new school and she's trying and she's making friends.)<br /><br />This reminds me a little bit of Bridge to Terabithia, in that it takes these horrible situations and shows kids the way they really are. We live in a world where kids die and it's stupid and senseless but it's reality. And at some point, everyone is going to have to deal with grief. Right as Rain shows some really healthy ways to do that.<br /><br />Recommended.

5/5 for RIGHT AS RAIN. Thank you to author @lindseystoddardwrites and @harpercollinsch for the free copy of this book to share with #kidlitexchange. All opinions are my own.<br />.<br />~<br />~<br />JUST LIKE JACKIE was a very special read for me in 2018 so I shamelessly begged Stoddard for a copy of her newest book, RIGHT AS RAIN. I'm so glad! This is a #heartprint read for me and one of my favorite reads of 2019 so far. <br />.<br />~<br />~<br />Rain is carrying a heavy burden. She is sure her beloved older brother Guthrie's death over 350 days is her fault. Meanwhile, her father won't get out of bed and her mother is trying to fix the family with a change of scenery, moving them from rural VT to the multicultural, diverse world of Washington Heights in NYC. It's the end of the school year, but Rain has opportunities to contribute to her new community -- as a friend, as a part of a 4x100 m relay team and in helping a neighbor keep her home. In giving back, it's just possible that Rain may find herself again and help her family heal, as well.<br />.<br />~<br />~<br />There's so much here -- a family dealing with unbearable grief, feelings of otherness in a diverse community not (yet) her own, gentrification and change, homelessness, adjustment to urban life and more. Rain and her new classmate and track teammate, Frankie, have a complicated relationship from the start that feels authentic and is richly drawn. Every character feels like he or she is fully realized. I found myself simultaneously wanting to race through the book to find out both what happens in the present and the past (the night Guthrie dies is revealed bit by bit in flashbacks) and also wanting to slow down and enjoy the characters and the writing. Lindsey Stoddard is a new must-buy #mglit author for me. If you missed Just Like Jackie, be sure to go grab it. Both Stoddard's works are stunning!

Loved this book--the characters, the plot, the writing! It wasn't an easy story to tell, it wasn't an easy life for the main character Rain to live (moving from rural VT to NYC and starting over with school and friendships, dealing with the hurt and her sense of responsibility for her older brother's death, facing the possibility that her parents might separate--because parents often do after the death of a child). Author Lindsay Stoddard made it all feel so true at the heart level and the gut level.