Fixing Delilah

Fixing Delilah, by Sarah Ockler.

The maples near the porch shake their rustling green heads in the breeze, but Mom and Aunt Rachel don't notice. They just stare at each other, standing here in the middle of things with their arms dangling and the screen door half-open, the same blood flowing through their veins and a thousand pounds of unspoken words keeping them apart.

Delilah remembers staying at her grandparents' house in Red Falls, Vermont, when she was younger, and then after her grandfather's funeral her mom and she never went back. When her grandmother dies, however, they must go to fix up the house and sell it, and in the process they meet up with her mom's sister, Delilah's Aunt Rachel, and a childhood friend of Delilah's, Patrick. Originally they are resistant at leaving the city for the summer, but as time goes on, Delilah finds that perhaps everything she needs is right there in Red Falls.

I liked this novel a lot and the protagonist, Delilah, is very believable/relatable. There are a lot of secrets in her family, starting with her Aunt Stephanie, who died at age 19, and over the course of the summer, Delilah starts to find out some of these secrets in unusual ways. Then there's Patrick, who was inseparable with Delilah when they were little, and who has grown up and become very cute ... and a new friend she meets, Emily, whose family owns a coffee shop in the town. Red Falls makes Delilah realize that maybe her "city" life wasn't ideal after all, and that sometimes "home" can be the place you least expect it to be.

4 stars out of 5.