Donor 806 by Cynthia Weil
Blog post March 2018??
K.T. is a teenage singer songwriter who doesn’t know her real dad. Her mom is a train wreck with men, with one relationship after another ending or beginning.
But when K.T. insists that her mom let her meet her biological father, K.T. discovers she was conceived with the help of a sperm donor.
Insistent that she find out who her real dad is, K.T. goes online to a Website for people looking to meet their donor fathers.
What she finds is there are two other teens also looking for Donor 806 -- and they’re two boys she doesn’t much like from her suburban St. Louis high school, the jocky jerk Jesse Worthington and the nerdy magician Gabe Btcherelli.
How could she be related to THEM?
But they’re all in the same boat -- or jeep, as it turns out, as they wind up on a cross-country road trip in hopes of meeting their biological father.
There are plenty of disappointments and revelations along the way, but the characters are all likable in their own way and we wind up rooting for all of them.
Author Cynthia Weil’s plotting gets campy at times, and there are occasions where it’s tough to suspend your disbelief.
Notably, early in the book the kids find themselves out of gas at the Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, Texas.
Readers who haven’t been there won’t notice anything, but those who have might know that civilization -- including a shopping mall and gas stations -- is within walking distance.
There are a few minor flaws, but overall this is an enjoyable read that many teens will enjoy.
And it’s no surprise that the book’s protagonist and narrator is a singer songwriter given the author’s history.
Whether you know it or not, you know Cynthia Weil’s work. Before writing YA fiction, Weil wrote song lyrics on some classic songs, including “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” and “Somewhere Out There,” which won her an academy award. She’s in the songwriter’s Hall of Fame and Rock & Roll hall of fame.
Donor 806 by Cynthia Weil

This novel follows three teens with three different stereotypical personalities as they go on an adventure to meet the sperm donor that fathered them. KT is the main character and she is struggling after learning that the man she thought fathered her actually did not. This book has a lot of elements that go into a good teen novel, such as a strong female lead that needs to let down her walls, a mystery that needs to be solved, teenage angst to which teenagers can relate and personal growth of the characters. However, there are many problems with this novel. For one it has more cliché’s than substance. My biggest issue is with how easily the plot is moved along with lazy story telling. **Spoiler** For example, when KT decides to reach out to her sperm donor father she immediately gets a response from her siblings and they just happen to be two boys she goes to school with. Similarly, the same day the man who believes he is their donor just happened to check the message boards so that they might reunite. Later when the three teens decide to drive to find their father both boys’ parents have trips to go on, so that they will be out of town. This type of plot device is used over and over again and it is simply not believable. I did not enjoy this book because I could not believe it.