Review: The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

Blurb from Goodreads:

In Alaska, 1970, being a teenager here isn’t like being a teenager anywhere else. Ruth has a secret that she can’t hide forever. Dora wonders if she can ever truly escape where she comes from, even when good luck strikes. Alyce is trying to reconcile her desire to dance, with the life she’s always known on her family’s fishing boat. Hank and his brothers decide it’s safer to run away than to stay home—until one of them ends up in terrible danger.

Four very different lives are about to become entangled. 

My Review:
This was such a quick and captivating read!  I loved the story of four different teenagers in Alaska, just post-statehood and their struggles that are probably just as fresh today.  Not only was the setting interesting (and so different from a typical suburban setting) but the characters were each unique, with their own voice and so well written.  I seriously loved them all -- actually, one thing I could say about this book is that everyone was so good in it (except Dora's father).  Seriously, all of the characters were so likable in their own way, which is not an easy feat especially given some of the complicated situations and hardships  into which these characters were thrown.  

I would definitely recommend this book to fans of beautifully written and enchanting YA.  Something about the way the story culminated in so many entangled lives reminded of another recent favorite, The Tsar of Love and Techno.

The Smell of Other People's Houses comes out today, February 23, 2016, you can purchase HERE, and I highly recommend it!

If the seasons bleed into each other like a watercolor painting, it means not enough fish and berries to last the winter, not enough wood chopped for the stove, not enough meat in the freezer.  One year winter came so fast and so hard, the leaves on the birch trees didn't even have time to turn yellow and fall off; they froze solid green on the branches.  They clung there for months on skinny skeleton arms, the color so blindingly wrong it was creepy.  Every year it's a race between the seasons, and that year fall lost.