See You at Harry’s by Jo Knowles

This spring I read the heartwarming young-adult novel See You at Harry’s. This book by Jo Knowles is about twelve-year-old Fern and the challenges of her family life. Her father is obsessed with the family-owned restaurant (Harry’s) and all her mother does is meditate. Her eighteen-year-old sister, Sara, is trying to find ways not to work during her year off after high school and her fourteen-year-old brother Holden is struggling with his peers and his homosexuality. The youngest member of the family, three-year-old Charlie, and his annoying antics place him in the center of all the attention and is a huge thorn in Fern’s side. If it wasn’t for her friend Ran, who is always calming and positive, Fern would feel completely invisible. As if things couldn’t get any worse for Fern with all these family issues, a devastating tragedy rips the family apart and Fern feels responsible for it all. How will things ever be the same again?

See You at Harry’s was a book I knew was going to be interesting from the very start. I was so hooked on the story that I finished it in only a few days. The book is a very accurate representation of the challenges most adolescents face and also adds in a very uncommon, but shockingly realistic tragedy that really tests the characters’ love for each other. I found myself growing to love the characters as if I knew them personally, from the cool and collective Ran to happy-go-lucky Charlie. Despite the heartbreaking event that turns the lives of Fern’s family upside-down, there is a light at the end of the tunnel because of the sense of hope that the book will leave you with. As a novel that seeks out to explore all the joys and hardships of family life and increase their impact on the reader tenfold, See You at Harry’s is nearly perfect in every way.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

Submitted by Lauren Leon