Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth.

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For Amy Henderson, 1973 has been a lonely year of too many awkward moments to count--that is, until she helps rescue an injured seal pup. To help save Pup, she forms an unlikely alliance with a questionable boy in a worn-out army jacket, and a peculiar older woman the kids in town call "Old Coot." 

Amy finds that people aren't always what they seem, as she nurtures Pup back to health with the help of Craig and Miss Cogshell, while trying to hide Pup from the harbormaster and a group of nosy popular girls who have their eyes on Craig. Just as Amy starts to feel at home with her newfound friends, she must face an unexpected challenge that could change the future of her town, and her own life as well.

Our thoughts:

This is Strykowski's first novel and it was really cute. The budding friendship between Amy and Craig was very sweet and believable, as was their relationship with an elderly woman that the kids all referred to as "Old Coot". What I had a hard time believing was the idea that they were harboring a seal pup. I didn't think you could even keep a seal alive without having some place for him to swim, no less be able to keep him in a house. I can't imagine what that must have smelled like.

On the whole I liked this book. The characters insecurities, self-doubt, and wisdom made them all very convincing. This was a nice coming of age book.

Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.

Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.

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