Do I Stay or Do I Go? A Review of My Best Everything

20783745Luisa (Lulu) Mendez is on the road to success. A top graduate of her rural Virginia high school, she’s leaving for the University of San Diego in the fall. Except for one small problem. Her father made a bad business decision, lost a lot of money, and cleaned out her college account.

Having met ex-moonshiner Mason Malone, an older dropout who works with the boyfriend of Lulu’s best friend Roni, and seen an illegal still dropped off at the junkyard where she works, Lulu puts two and two together. She comes up with the idea of making and selling moonshine to replenish her college account. Though Mason swore off the family business after a near-death experience and a stint in rehab, Lulu persuades him to give her, her best friend, and her best friend’s boyfriend advice on making moonshine. In the process, good Catholic girl Lulu and Mason, who spent his adolescence in an alcohol and drug-induced haze and whose previous girlfriend died in a drunk-driving crash, slowly and tentatively fall in love. Or at least they become sexually attracted to each other. In their innocence and focus on other struggles in their lives, they aren’t sure what love is.

Sarah Tomp’s debut novel is honest and insightful in its exploration of teens’ romantic relationships and in the choices the characters make to attain their dreams for the future. With high school behind them, Lulu, Mason, Roni, and Bucky search for hope in a struggling rural town that seems to offer none. Like Lulu, Bucky looks to college for his escape. Roni auditions for a country and western band, but her success strains her relationship with Bucky, who she’d planned to marry. Mason never believed he’d do anything different from his family’s moonshine business, and helping Lulu may even shut off that opportunity. Tomp asks readers to think about what success means, the value of one’s home and family, and a society that forces young people to choose between the two.

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