GIVEAWAY REVIEW The Gap Year by Sarah Bird @gallerybooks @sarahbirdwriter

Cam has raised her daughter Aubrey alone ever since her ex left to join a cult. But now the bond between mother and daughter seems to have disappeared. While Cam is frantic to see Aubrey, a straight-A student, at the perfect college, on a path that Cam is sure will provide her daughter success and happiness, Aubrey suddenly shows no interest in her mother’s plans. Even the promise of an exciting gap year saving baby seals or bringing clean water to remote villages hasn’t tempted her. She prefers pursuing a life with her wrong-side-of-the-tracks football-hero boyfriend and her own secret hopes.Both mourn the gap that has grown between them, but Cam and Aubrey seem locked in a fight without a winner. Can they both learn how to hold onto dreams . . . and when to let go to grasp something better? Sarah Bird’s trademark laugh-out-loud humor joins with the tears that accompany love in a combination that reveals the fragile yet tough bonds of mother and daughter.

Sarah Bird lives with her family in Austin, Texas, where she performs her own material regularly at the Hyde Park Theatre. She is the author of six previous novels, including The Flamenco Academy and The Yokota Officers Club.

Details Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Gallery Books; Reprint edition (July 17, 2012) Language: English ISBN-10: 1451678762 ISBN-13: 978-1451678765

SOURCE:  PUBLISHER


MY THOUGHTS
LOVED IT


Cam, a lactation consultant and single mother, can no longer connect with her daughter, Aubrey.  Aubrey’s father ran away to join the circus, a cult like religion when she was just three and although she is left with a trust fund for college, the two have had no real contact.  Just as Aubrey is approaching her senior year, she meets the school football star and hottie, Tyler.  As a band geek, Aubrey and Tyler should have never met, much alone fall in love, so as the two become closer, Cam is left wondering what happened to her perfect, conscientious daughter who had everything planned out in life.  Or were the plans really Cam’s and not Aubrey’s?  


As Cam tries to get her daughter’s attention to complete the scholarship and trust fund paperwork to make the initial tuition payments, Aubrey disappears.  Not completely, but Aubrey starts avoiding Cam.  So as Cam spirals into self doubt over her daughter and her daughter’s new relationship, her ex, Martin appears, somewhat out of nowhere.  Aubrey and Tyler have started a business serving fusion cuisine out of an Airstream trailer in the reclaimed trendy section of the city.  Martin helps to get the business off the ground through social media and without the knowledge of the kids.  


The story is told in alternating chapters between mother and daughter and you can see how each is right in their thinking.  Aubrey wants to make her own decisions and Cam is having issues letting go.  With Martin inserted back into the picture, everything becomes even more entangled.  I thought the characters were well drawn and the plot mostly believable.  I can see how an eighteen year old would want to choose her own direction in life and how a mother would have issues letting go, especially when it had only been the two of them for so long. I was glad to see Aubrey combine the wishes of both her parents as well as how much she grew into her own person.  Even Cam grew up a little bit.  This book would make an excellent transition for teens looking for something to bridge the gap between teen contemporary fiction and more adult novels.