Blooming at the Texas Sunrise Motel

Reviewed by: Carla McAllister - New Gloucester Public Library, New Gloucester, Maine, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: November 22, 2017

Review

13-year-old only-child Stevie Grace is living a wonderful, secure, and loving existence with her Mother and Father on a small farm in New Mexico. She believes that her grandparents are all dead and her parents never speak of them. In fact, they have fanciful stories for how they came to be together. Stevie has come to realize that these probably are not true. When her parents are killed in an automobile-related accident, Stevie is grief-stricken. On top of that, she is sent to Texas to stay with her maternal Grandfather whom she never knew existed. She is eager for any information about her Mother as a child and yearns to hear the true story about how her parents came to be together, but her Grandfather is gruff, stern, and far from welcoming. Stevie does find friendship with various characters who work and live at the drab and deteriorating Texas Sunrise Motel that her Grandfather owns. As she comes to learn about what happened between her parents, she comes to understand her Grandfather's reticence to form a close bond with her. A lovely story, though this reader wanted to shake most of the adults involved in this tale and impress upon them the need for Stevie to have help dealing with her loss. Ultimately, Stevie seems to be the most mature personality in the book.

Overall Book Score: good