 
|
Life doesn’t always work out the way we think it should when we are fifteen. As Mado tries to concentrate on studying for her upcoming History exam, her mind keeps taking her back to last year, when her mother and father helped her to study and her sister Patty happily worked at a restaurant after having given up on graduating from high school.
Then, suddenly, their world changes. A rainy night and a slick road take her parents from her, and the courts decide that Patty can only be her guardian if Mado keeps up her grades and Patty can keep up with Mado. Lucky for Patty, Mado is a low maintenance child; not so lucky for Mado, Patty is not.
In order for them to stay together, Mado will have to assume responsibility for both of them. Patty forgets to eat unless someone reminds her. When Patty takes off for a weekend with Luigi instead of staying home to help Mado study, her lack of consideration is not unexpected, but Mado becomes suspicious that there is more to this trip than Patty is telling.
Thus begins the stairway of lies that Patty tells Mado and others, as Mado tries desperately to protect her sister and keep them out of view of the court and the judge, who will separate them at the slightest provocation.
The author shares her native France with the reader as Mado and her sister experience living in Paris and in the countryside. Readers will come away wanting to see this beautiful country and wanting to hear more from these characters.
|
|
Life as It Comes