{"id":34046,"date":"2014-07-28T10:02:15","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T14:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=34046"},"modified":"2014-07-28T13:18:24","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T17:18:24","slug":"split-by-swati-avasthi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/split-by-swati-avasthi\/","title":{"rendered":"Split by Swati Avasthi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Split<\/a>When Jace Witherspoon arrives at Christian Marshall’s address after 19 hours of driving straight\u00a0from Chicago to Albuquerque, he’s not quite sure what he’s going to say. “‘I was in the neighborhood,’ … ‘I’m just here to borrow a cup of sugar,’ … ‘One more stop in the eternal quest for the perfect burrito.'” Uhhh, maybe not.\u00a0Five years have passed since Jace, 16, last saw\u00a0his older brother Christian, who left the family and dropped their shared surname.<\/p>\n

Without saying a word, Jace’s “face will tell half the story” \u2013 bloody and mangled, Jace has been ejected by their abusive father. “For the other half,” Jace thinks to himself, “I’ll keep my mouth shut and lie by omission. Someday I’ll fess up, tell him the whole deal, and then he can perform\u00a0a lobotomy or whatever it takes.”<\/p>\n

The brothers’ reunion is tentative. Guilt, anger, abandonment, betrayal get in the way. As Christian created another life for himself\u00a0\u2013 college on his own, now medical school, a year-old steady relationship with hapa Mirriam \u2013 Jace, too, must figure out who he will be, away from their\u00a0violent father and victimized mother.<\/p>\n

In his new high school, Jace makes\u00a0a “bastard-no-longer”\u00a0pledge to himself, trying to start fresh. Possessed\u00a0by\u00a0vivid memories of his Chicago girlfriend (“ex-girlfriend,” he keeps reminding himself), he’s determined to stay unattached, in spite of the\u00a0queen bee’s attention at school and his co-worker Dakota’s charm at the bookstore where he gets a part-time job. He easily gets on\u00a0the varsity soccer team, although his talent challenges the resident\u00a0testosterone. For Christian’s sake, he\u00a0reluctantly navigates new waters with Mirriam, who teaches English\u00a0at the high school, and seems to want to play shrink at home.<\/p>\n

Swati Avasthi<\/a>‘s debut novel is a heart-pounding powerhouse,\u00a0infused with even greater immediacy if you choose to go aural with Joshua Swanson’s jolting, potent narration. While domestic abuse is hardly a new topic, Avasthi\u00a0confronts\u00a0the tragically familiar problem from a seldom-seen vantage point: what happens after<\/em> a child escapes an abusive family situation. By creating two brothers in the same family, Avasthi hauntingly demonstrates the possibility of\u00a0different reactions, consequences, outcomes. Without ever resorting to\u00a0bathos, she\u00a0offers no easy, magic-wand conclusions: abuse does not erase love, forgiveness is not unconditional, repairing family\u00a0bonds is never guaranteed,\u00a0and escape doesn’t always equal freedom.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Young Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Jace Witherspoon arrives at Christian Marshall’s address after 19 hours of driving straight\u00a0from Chicago to Albuquerque, he’s not quite sure what he’s going to say. “‘I was in the neighborhood,’ … ‘I’m just here to borrow a cup of sugar,’ … ‘One more stop…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,6,53,60,18,31],"tags":[6608,58,5852,10,189,5849,39,44,5850,5867],"class_list":["post-34046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio","category-fiction","category-indian-american","category-nonethnic-specific","category-south-asian-american","category-young-adult-readers","tag-bookdragon","tag-coming-of-age","tag-domestic-abuse","tag-family","tag-father-son-relationship","tag-joshua-swanson","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-siblings","tag-split","tag-swati-avasthi"],"yoast_head":"\nSplit by Swati Avasthi - 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