Review: No Alligators in Sight

Title: No Alligators in Sight
Author: Kirsten B. Feldman
Format: eboook
Pub. Date: November 25th 2013
Source: Kirsten B. Feldman

★★★★

Four stars.

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No Alligators in Sight follows Lettie, a thirteen year old girl who is forced to grow up earlier than she should have to take care of her younger brother. She's taken care of both Bert and her father, a bitter alcoholic. When Lettie is caught doing something against the rules, her father sends her and her brother down to Orlando, Florida for six weeks to live with the mother that left their family.

This book is a great one for the "coming of age" audience. Lettie has a lot of anger and darkness to her, and who can blame her? Forced to be a family caretaker, an absent mother, an alcoholic father. Life has stacked some rough cards for her to be dealt. But she's never overly brooding, an issue I find in a lot of other teen fiction. She felt real, and relatable, and it was easy to cheer her on when she needed it, and silently swear to yourself when she made bad decisions, like watching a friend.

In fact, this whole book is written with a great, shadowy tone. It has a gritty sense of realism. The setting is well developed and well described to match the characters. And yet, as heavy as the issues in this novel are, there is a fair bit of sarcasm and humor, which is a huge plus for me. It was nice to have a book that's a great balance of light and dark, and I think that's part of what makes this book go down so easily.

This has little to do with reviewing the content of the novel, but I will just quickly say that I really like the title of this book, along with the cover.

The only issue I really had with No Alligators in Sight was that it lagged a bit in the middle. I understand that certain points were important for development and movement of the plot, but the middle of the book started to lose me a bit. I do promise you though, that the ending makes up for it; it ends strong.

I recommend this book to those who enjoy teen reads and coming of age stories. This book does have some deep themes, like alcoholism.

Thank you to the author for my copy in exchange for my honest review.