This novel is so dark, so raw, so real. Fifteen year old JL has to care for her mother when her father goes on a long term job assignment out of state. Her mother Charlotte suffers from am undisclosed mental illness. JL and her best friend Aubrey have gone their separate ways, and JL begins dating hs senior Max. Told in a non-linear timeline, the novel made me sad and anxious. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read an eARC.

A unique set of characters interact and influence each other in this coming of age story. A father who works across the country, a mother who hides in the house, a free spirited grandmother, an older boyfriend about to graduate, an ex-best friend, and some newly hatched exotic butterflies all impact JL as she navigates this year of change and upheaval. An interesting story with a satisfying ending. I couldn't wait to see how it all turned out. Another great novel from an insightful writer.

Growing up, I loved books by Judy Blume. This book had a similar vibe. The author has a great understanding of teens, particularly the thought processes, insecurities and confusion of teen girls. A family in turmoil and crisis, along with the dissolution of a long term childhood friendship provide plenty of this fodder for lead character JL.

Another strong storyline is that of the relationship between JL and her 19 year old boyfriend Max. He calls her "Jailbait" and pressures her often to have sex and move their physical relationship along, even as he claims to be respectful of her boundaries and giving her time. Due to the instability of other relationships in her life, JL perhaps bends a bit more than she would like at times.

Well written book by Gae Polisner. Thank you to the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book I would have loved as a teen. Raw, realistic fiction based on teenage angst. JL is on the cusp of adulthood with her looming 16th birthday. Her hippy parents have always raised her different from her friends, but she has always had her best friend Aubrey by her side. Her father cleans up his act and his new job sends him to far-off California, with a promise that he will be home in 6 months, and then another, and still another. JL's mother is not handling the separation well, and wanders around the house beautiful, but lost without her husband. JL is left fending for herself, with the partial support of her grandmother who refuses to see the seriousness of JL's mother's condition, but who also supports her granddaughter in her quest and love of butterflies.

JL has always been dependent on the love and support of her best-friend Aubrey. Aubrey's family is loving and supportive, yet JL finds herself and Aubrey not such great friends in high school years, especially because JL's family is falling apart and JL has too little adult supervision. JL falls in love with bad-boy Max, and she tries to cope with her growing love for him, the loss of her best friend, the loss of her father and her mother's worsening condition.

This is the story of hope, of growing up, facing changed friendships, falling in love, and experiencing glimpses of who we are meant to be along the way. It's beautifully written, full of both hope and despair, and also of the joys and sorrows the world can provide.

I received this book courtesy of NetGalley as an ARC in exchange for my honest review. All quotes come from that ARC and not a published book. At the time I'm writing this, the book has not been released.

Trigger warnings: mentions of underage sex, attempted coercive sex, mental illness, butterfly deaths.

I always debate whether to give a book I rate 4.5/5 stars four or five stars on here. I'm erring towards 5, because I really loved it and the more I thought about all the elements of it, the more I decided it's closer to 5 than 4 stars.

When I finished this book, the first thing I thought was that I had, well, a lot of thoughts on this book. There's so much to untangle here.

Here's the thing about this book that really ripped my heart out: the predictable ending would have been bad enough. It would have been sad enough. It would have probably made you cry. But the way Gae ends this? If I'd had a physical book I would have been torn between throwing it across the room and sighing in relief that JL didn't do what I thought she was inevitably headed towards.

JL is whip-smart, but she's very much still a child, and the parts that were hardest to read, were the way she was failed, again and again, by people she should have been able to trust. Which, in turn, is the precise reason she doesn't talk to her friends or family about her older, inappropriate, manipulative boyfriend.

In case it's not clear, I don't approve of JL's boyfriend. Under no circumstances should a 19-year-old be dating a 15-year-old. He calls her "Jailbait" (supposedly ironically, if I remember correctly, but still), even.

But because of the way society is, sexism and misogyny being what it is, I felt it really resonated how most of JL's friends blamed the relationship on JL. Because the girl had to be the Jezebel--which was what made the butterflies so perfect, obviously. The butterflies. I can't get over the butterflies.

JL raises butterflies, a fact we are introduced to very early on in the story. Her grandmother purchases them for her, as an early sixteenth birthday present, because she insists that "a girl should have something truly special and beautiful when she turns sixteen." Early on, she did this with her friend, Aubrey, and her boyfriend, Max. But as the story goes on, Aubrey shows up less and less, and Max more and more. It's as if she's replacing one confidant for another, one great love for the next.

Aubrey hates Max, and eventually, as a consequence, becomes a shadow character, simultaneously JL's conscious and someone JL desperately wants back, but can't stand on many levels. Honestly, there's a lot of sapphic sub-text. One line, in particular, caught my eye: "We are giddy with summer, with each other." I mean, come on--that's gay.

Something that isn't a huge key plot point but that I appreciated--JL is Jewish. Her grandmother mentions it in a story while talking about an argument with her mother about not marrying someone Jewish. I don't think it's mentioned again, but it's just really nice to have representation even if it's not a big part of the story.

The title of the book isn't a play on words or an obscure reference that comes up once--it's a key theme. All the women in her family were, at one point, in love with Jack Kerouac in one manner or another. Even Max is in love with him, in love with the romance of the road, while JL just wants to escape things that aren't okay in her life. She's not really in love with the road. She could care less about Kerouac. Hence the title. At some point, JL kills the last remnants of his presence in her family, which you'll see in the book, which I've hopefully convinced you to read.

I didn't realize this book was told in a fluctuating timeline. I have trouble following books like that because the stir up my anxiety. It doesn't help that the emotions are so raw they are palpable as you read. I felt like I was trapped back in my dark days.

It was good, but too much back and forth.

I had issues with the age gap...and the fact that I'd been on JL's side of it myself. I had issues with the self deprecating way the main voice spoke about herself, and her former friend Aubrey. These are the reasons I marked it so low.

I thank NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

JL lives at home with her parents, only her father has been mia for a while working in California. The fact that his job keeps extending his stay out there is taking its toll on her mother, who is drinking a lot. In addition to her drinking, she's writing letters to Kerouac when she's lucid enough to do so. JL's grandmother had a very brief encounter with the author when he was alive and so JL's mother has a bit of an obsession with him. That obsession is resulting in multiple letters being sent to him a week.

It's all too much for JL and so she escapes into a world with her friends and her boyfriend Max. Though her friendship with Aubrey has gone south too as she doesn't much care for him, the age gap, or his drinking and smoking pot. He's a bit of a bad boy, a 19 year-old bad boy to JL's 15. And because she doesn't have Aubrey to lean on, JL unhealthily latches onto Max as she has no one to hang out with.

There aren't a ton of reviews out as I'm writing my own but I'm a bit surprised that no one else is writing about the age gap. Max calls her jailbait which is disrespectful, and he gets her to smoke pot. Despite him saying he's willing to wait for her to be ready to have sex, he isn't really willing as he brings it up *a lot*. A girl at 15 is going through vastly different things than a guy at 19, and it's a shame that there is no one in JL's life outside of Aubrey who is expressing concern about her relationship. (and I get people will defend this and say they're just two kids, age doesn't matter, etc), but not only can I not get on board with it, I feel sad that JL didn't have more support (especially seeing her mother liked Max without really knowing him).

Aside from the age problem, I think this was very well-written. JL has a lot of great insight regarding her life. Polisner touched on a lot of topics including teen dating, sex, mental illness, being quasi-raised by a single parent, and alcohol. I thought the way she posed the book as JL writing a journal length letter to Aubrey about everything that has happened since the two stopped being friends was a unique way to write the book.

I definitely enjoyed the book and will recommend it to others to read. Although, I am not certain it will be my students that I recommend it to. I'm not sure it really "felt" like a YA book. Yes, it was about a 15 year old girl and her 20 year old boyfriend so it puts it in about the right age category. The occurrence of mental illness and its progression through the story is just a little too realistic and unresolved to feel comfortable about offering up the book to young teens as something positive and hopeful Teens are sometimes so fragile. One thing I especially liked was that the protagonist was not surrounded by a group of die-hard supporters like you find in so many YA books but you don't find in real life. That is just one more thing about this book that makes it more realistic than many YA books you will find these days.
Regardless, I did really enjoy the book and will likely look for more books by this author and will continue to recommend this one as well.

Fifteen-year-old JL Markham isn't having the best year: her father has been on an extended business trip for nearly a year, her mother's mental health is in a steady decline, and her best friend, Aubrey, has found a new clique of friends that excludes her. There are only two good things in her life: the butterflies she raises and her boyfriend, Max. When Max reveals his plans to leave Long Island for California, JL's life is thrown into a whirlwind.

Framed as a letter to Aubrey, this YA novel follows two month's of JL's sophomore year of high school and explores the events preceding the book. I thought JL was a very relatable character; I'm nearly a decade older than her, but this book made me think back on the trials and tribulations of my high school friendships and relationships. I thought the framed narrative-esque format worked well for this book (even though I felt like it sometimes lost sight of that objective). It made sense that, even though they'd been fighting, all JL wanted to do was confide in Aubrey about her family troubles, the fate of the butterflies, her thoughts about having sex with Max, and, most of all, what happened to their friendship.

In the end, I liked this book a lot. I definitely recommend it to fans of YA literature for an emotional, nostalgic read.

Flipping back and forth in time, we come to understand JL’s rebellious attachment to bad-boy Max on the rebound from losing closeness with he BFF and that friend’s brother. Lots of frank description of sexual arousal and satisfaction, though JL retains her virginity...barely. And much of her behavior is linked to her mother’s mental illness and her father’s absence. It’s a lot to take on.

This is a dark coming of age novel and it definitely isn’t for everyone and that’s okay. This is a story about independence and strength which I admire but I also feel awful for. Nobody this young should have to grow up this fast. I also completely relate to it which is why I love this book so much.
I honestly don’t want to give away too much and I’m still processing way too much but this was phenomenal. The writing is gorgeous, the plot is brilliant. I’m looking forward to more from this author.

Thank you very much to Netgalley and the Publisher. All opinions are my own.

This reminded me of the Judy Blume books I read as a kid--the author perfectly captures the feelings of being confused, left out, and pressured that many teenagers experience. The story could have been a little longer--the end started to feel rushed--but perhaps we'll get a sequel to JL's story.

FOUR shining stars for the love of young but strong, mature, smart, relatable character JL and her amazing, captivating, attention catcher narration pushed me give more STARS!

I enjoyed JL’s story who is only 15, traumatized by her mother’s mental health issues and father’s working outside of California, hits puberty and deals with the other adaptation problems in school, drifting apart from her best friend and dating 19 years old Max who wasn’t being approved by her close friends.

Now she decides to take a road trip with Max to leave her past behind for starting something fresh but Max’s inconvenient attitudes around her and his pushy manners irritated the hell of me.

Thankfully we don’t have decisive, lost, stupid or doormat kind of heroine. She might be so young and she had her own flaws, mistakes and bad decisions but she is still capable to find her own strength to form her own path.
I liked the writing, characterization, development of the story. It was Kerouac-y beautiful self-discovery, growing up, finding yourself kind of journey which made me read more of the author’s other books.

Special thanks to Netgalley and Wednesday Books to share this fantastic ARC COPY with me in exchange my honest review. I really enjoyed this one!

I could spend literally every minute between now and its release date---April 7---trying to write this review, and I still wouldn't be able to do this book justice.

First, you should know that this book isn't for everyone. It's dark and deals with hard topics and it will break your heart. It's more Cameron Crowe than John Hughes, and when I say that, I mean great Cameron Crowe (Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Say Anything Cameron Crowe, not Aloha Cameron Crowe). 

I love everything about this book. I love that JL is trying so hard to hold her life together with basically zero help from anyone (her dad's gone, her mom's useless and her grandmother is pretending so hard that everything's normal that she can't see how awful things really are). Max is great but that's its own complication (he is causing problems with JL's best friend and also he wants to have sex and she's not ready). And the person she's most used to counting on, her best friend Aubrey, is becoming a total jerk. It's all the worst for her.

Ellen Hopkins once wrote a YA novel that featured one character and then an adult novel that featured that character's mother. I mention that because I would really like an adult novel about Nana. (You probably thought I'd say JL's mom, right? Nope. I want historical fiction about Nana.) And I would like a sequel so I know what happens with JL. I hope it's amazing and she ends up finding her people. (I think she does.)

When I first met Gae, I was reading The Pull of Gravity (her first novel) and basically live Tweeting my reactions to her. That's how we became friends. This reading experience was very different. I didn't put the book down until toward the end and even then, it was only for two seconds. I loved TPOG but this is a whole different experience. I didn't want to leave the story, even only long enough to tell her how much I loved it.

This story is such an amazing gift, I can't even tell you. I don't read perfect novels very often but this is one. Highly recommended.

I would like to thank NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy.

The cover of this book is beautiful and I was drawn in by the description, but I never quite connected to the story or the characters as much as I expected I would. I believe, for me, it was the time jumps that occur chapter to chapter. I enjoy backstory/flashbacks, but it took me away from JL's present and it wasn't until more than halfway through the book that I truly felt sympathy for JL. She has a lot going on and in terms of telling a story, it sometimes felt like too much because there was no solid focus on one situation or relationship. But really, can you think of anything more true to life? Especially in high school. It's a lot of things and feelings happening at once and sometimes all those things really suck. Remembering what that was like is what kept me invested in JL's story.

The plot itself is strong and heartbreaking: JL's father is on a long term business trip, leaving her home with her mother who is suffering from dissociative disorder. At the same time, JL is losing her best friend Aubrey and finds herself left only with the comfort of the butterflies she raises and her older badboy boyfriend, Max Gordon.

I hated Max Gordon, who calls JL "jailbait" and is every badboy stereotype, right down to the motorcycle. He isn't a fun-to-hate character, but he is familiar and very gross. Max Gordon paired with the lack of explanation or exploration of JL's mother's "dissociative disorder" might be the reason I did not enjoy this book as much as I hoped I would. I was so intrigued by the inclusion of this mental illness, but there is no explicit diagnosis or solid focus on it. This was very disappointing.

Gae Pilsner's writing is wonderful, but this book ultimately fell flat for me.

I really liked this book. JL, the main character is a 15yo sophomore in high school who is dating a 19 year old senior, Max. JL's life is a bit of a mess with her dad working out in California and her mom falling off the deep edge in loneliness with a little bit crazy too. JL used to be best friends with Aubrey but they have drifted apart since she started seeing Max, who nobody really approves of except JL's mom, strangely enough. JL is slowly learning about growing up, love, family, deceipt, friendship and solving your problems not by running away but by facing them. Max wants to go to California and JL is all in because her life is in a pretty bad state right now and she wants to leave it all behind. Max seems like he loves her but is always pushing her and many things he does are cause for concern. JL eventually realizes what she needs to do--she is a strong chrachter who is confused. The story could have used a little more as far as plot but in general was really good because the characters were strong and well-written. A favorite author of mine! Thanks to NG for the ARC!!

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of JACK KEROUAC IS DEAD TO ME by Gae Polisner in exchange for my honest review.***

With JL’s father working across country and her mother lost to mental illness, her friendship with Aubrey grounds JL. Puberty and high school and boys draw a wedge between the girls. Now Max has replaced Aubrey as JL’s go-to person. Max is graduating and taking the road for LA, and JL wants in.

JACK KERAOUSC IS DEAD TO ME is my first, but certainly not my last Gae Polisner. She gave JL such a gorgeous, heartbreaking voice I found myself tearing up at the young teen’s narration. Polisner subtly illustrates how lack of grounding in family can lead trend toward the attentions of unhealthy relationships. Broken people, like JL look for validation wherever they can find it.

Max, nineteen to JL’s fifteen, isn’t overtly bad news. Sure, he’s way too old for JL, occasionally drinks and smokes and calls her Jailbait, which were not the red flags they should have been. While Max technically respects JL’s decision to wait for sex, he does push her leading into caution territory of consent. “Not yet” should not mean keep asking every time I see you. I’m glad Polisner made JL strong enough not to be pushed.

JL’s mother was said to have dissociative disorder, which was never defined , though behavior can be wide ranging and ambiguous. I don’t think readers will glean any insight into the disorder and I wondered why Polisner chose that mental illness.

JACK KEROUAC IS DEAD TO ME seemed to be a different book than the blurb suggested. The friendship between JL and Aubrey seemed to fall apart for ambiguous reasons. Miscommunication? Growing apart? JL was the heart of this character driven story that lacked a strong plot. Fortunately, JL was a multidimensional, strong, flawed young woman.

Polisner’s writing is enough reason to read JACK KEROUAC IS DEAD TO ME.