Editorial Review:

Thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Mullens, better known as Buddy, should be having a wonderful summer. Everybody in her small Southern town is getting ready for the Fourth of July, and she's about to start high school. But little by little, Buddy's mom is slipping into her own dark world, and that summer she finally has a breakdown. She has to be taken to Moodus Meadows, a place for people with emotional problems. How could her mother just leave her? Buddy still has her dad and even likes the idea of her glamorous Aunt Sherry staying with them, but she wants her mom back. And one way or another she's going to make it happen. H "Events unfold believably and hopefully in this moving story about family, mental illness, and coming of age. . . ."-Booklist (starred review)

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0

lovely, thoughtful book:

I picked this up as a bargain for my 12-year-old, then finished it myself that day. While some characters fall into stock categories (looks and popularity-obsessed pretty girl, scruffy tomboy, burdened-but-valiant poor girl), they are well-drawn enough to come fully to life and even present a few surprises. The adults are similarly nuanced, flawed but appealing. The special beauty of the story is its realistic and sympathetic handling of the mother's mental illness: the roots of it, the paths to healing,... more info

Beautiful and inspiring:

An amazing book. I am anxiously awaiting Ms.Fritz's next book because this was excellent. The mix of character development, humor, complex and realistic thoughts and beautiful lines make this book a great read.

Great character development:

Every once in a while a book comes along that your have to take the time to recommend to other readers, and this is one of them. The book is set in 1960 in a small southern town, and isn't about social issues, but rather about a trumatic experience in a young girl's life as she is preparing to enter highschool. The above editorial review covers the reasons behind her mother's breakdown, so I wont recap them, but I want to comment on the characters in the story. Buddy - is a rare jewel of a person, who is... more info

A warm story of a family adjusting to emotional upset:

Buddy is looking forward to a wonderful summer before she begins high school, but family problems are keeping her from fun. Her older brother, killed two years earlier, still haunts her mother's memory and just before the big summer picnic, her mother suffers a breakdown and enters a rest place for those with emotional problems. Determined to get her mother back from 'that place', Buddy embarks on a campaign which will change her family's life in Waiting To Disappear, a warm story of a family adjusting to... more info

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