Fall 2021: Wild Readers Group 5 discussion

The book I decided to read for my sixth book review is “Love and Leftovers”, written by Sarah Tregay. This book is a verse novel coming of age story that narrates the life of a young teenage girl named Marcie Foster. In this novel in verse, Marcie deals with the troubles of friendships, boy troubles, family problems, and high school environments. In the novel, Marcie is forced to move to her mother’s childhood home in New Hampshire away from her home, dad, boyfriend, and friends all in Idaho. Throughout the story, Marcie is able to have a fresh start without being known as a “leftover” from her old school. Shortly after, she meets a new group of friends in New Hampshire where she slowly starts to build a romantic relationship with the popular jock J.D. and begins to feel guilty and confused about how she feels about her boyfriend Linus back in Idaho. Eventually, Marcie returns back home to Idaho and realizes how much the relationship between her boyfriend and her friends has changed.
I found this novel very enjoyable to read because I think many young teenagers can find comfort in this book by relating to some of the struggles Marcie faces whether it be moving away from friends, parents separating, or relationship problems. Personally, I found this novel relatable because my parents moved to Idaho last year which makes it a lot more difficult to see and visit my friends from my hometown. Overall, I think this novel did a great job portraying the common issues teenagers face when going through high school.