How Far Would You Have Gotten If I Hadn't Called You Back? is a young adult novel from Valerie Hobbs, released in October of 1995. It's one of my favorite books and is easily my favorite young adult book not written by Madeleine L'Engle.
Set in 1960 Ojala, California, it centers around 16-year-old Bronwyn Lewis and is, as you'd expect from any teenager-coming-of-age novel, all about Bron finding herself and learning her place.
She and her family are from New Jersey, but after her father tried to kill himself, they packed up and headed west. They finally settled in the sleepy desert town of Ojala, where her parents open a family restaurant and she and her little brother start school locally. She references being "the girl from," laments the effortless cool of her California classmates, resents her parents for uprooting her and her father for shaming the family, and abandons her academics and piano playing in favor of cars and boys. She ends up in a love triangle with local cowboy and eventual West Point student Will Harding on one point and drag-racing bad boy J. C. on the other point. In the end, of course, Bron does discover who she is and where she belongs, but not before she makes plenty of mistakes.
The end of the book makes me cry every time. It doesn't matter that I know what happens, I still read it hoping it won't end the way that it does.
It's an excellent book. There's frank discussion about sex, sexuality, and even a mention of an abortion, and there are lessons to be learned about the value of family and the dangers of peer pressure. It's a book I plan to offer my daughter when she hits the same age I was when I first read it, twelve or thirteen. If I were to teach a middle school or high school freshman English class, I would want it on the syllabus. It stands up well over the years.
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