Everything's Not Fine

Sarah Carlson

Description

Debut novel, All the Walls of Belfast received glowing reviews from Booklist and Foreword Reviews

Received blurb from Jessie Ann Foley, award-winning author of The Carnival at Bray

Nominated for Junior Library Guild pick

Love of Art: YA readers will watch Rose’s love for art blossoms as she struggles with the consequences of her mother’s addiction and learns how to let others into her pain. Frida Kahlo’s art, specifically, is highlighted as Rose’s favorite artist and personal inspiration which will be reflected in the cover art.

Timely, Widespread Issue: According to the CDC, there are at least 2-4 million opioid addicts and over 12 million who are opioid dependent with more than 130 people dying every day in American from opioid related overdoses. Everything’s Not Fine demonstrates how the opioid epidemic affects the families and loved ones of those caught in its grasp.

School Librarian Central: Librarians be drawn to this powerful, beautifully-written story that deals with the complicated relationships between trauma, art, addiction, personal dreams, and family responsibility.

Real-life Experience: Sarah Carlson has her Masters in Education and works as a psychologist in a school with a mostly low income population. She specializes in the behavioral and mental health needs of children who have been exposed to trauma and is therefore well-versed in the ways that addiction affects family life.

Sujets

• Univers ado
• Classiques ados
• Fiction ado
• Fiction Ado
• Literary
• Young Adult Fiction
• YA
• Wisconsin
• Classiques Ados

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 26 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781684424122
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Everything s Not Fine
T URNER P UBLISHING C OMPANY Nashville, Tennessee www.turnerpublishing.com
E VERYTHING S N OT F INE
Copyright 2020 Sarah Carlson. All rights reserved.
This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher .
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously .
Cover design: Rebecca Lown
Book design: Karen Sheets de Gracia
L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS C ATALOGING-IN- P UBLICATION D ATA
Names: Carlson, Sarah J., author.
Title: Everything is not fine / Sarah J Carlson.
Description: [Nashville : Turner Publishing Company, 2020] Audience: Ages 4-18 Audience: Grades 10-12 Summary: Seventeen-year-old Rose Hemmersbach aspires to break out of small town Sparta, Wisconsin and achieve her artistic dreams, just like her aunt Colleen, but must face her mother s heroin addiction and its ramifications first.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019035589 (print) LCCN 2019035590 (ebook) ISBN 9781684424108 (paperback) ISBN 9781684424115 (hardcover) ISBN 9781684424122 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Drug abuse-Fiction. Family problems-Fiction. Dating (Social customs)-Fiction. High schools-Fiction. Schools-Fiction. Artists-Fiction. Wisconsin-Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.C4115 Eve 2020 (print) LCC PZ7.1.C4115 (ebook) DDC [Fic]-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019035589
P RINTED IN THE U NITED S TATES OF A MERICA
20 21 22 23 24 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Sarah J. Carlson
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Hollis s chainsaw snore yanks me out of sleep. His lanky leg, half swathed in his Pikachu sheet, hangs off his bed.
I chuck my teal owl accent pillow at him.
Huh? Don t! he whines, then chucks it back at me.
I catch it and tuck it under my head. Stop snoring then, Holly Dolly.
Don t call me that, butthead, he mumbles into his Pok mon pillow.
God, I m seventeen. I cannot believe I have to share a room with a nine-year-old who smells like sweaty pit. Especially when our room is currently like ninety degrees. I stretch my arm and turn the oscillating fan toward me, then snatch my phone from the bedside table. We ran out of minutes; thank God our neighbor Traci s Wi-Fi password is just her name.
I send Dad another link for those trundle bunk beds-because seriously, why can t Hollis, Vi, and Sage share a room?-then check Instagram. At the top of my feed is a selfie of Seraphina Abramsson. Behind her is an empty Broadway theater with golden pillars and a crystal chandelier hanging from a ceiling covered with Renaissance-style frescoes. She s wearing her trademark red lipstick, offsetting her milky skin and long, silky white-blonde hair.
The caption:
Just finished my last show. Wicked, it s been an unbelievable year. While I ve deeply loved playing Glinda, I m ready for what lies ahead. For the next two weeks, I ll be traveling the world searching for the true meaning of love. I don t know what life will hold when I walk the streets of NYC again, but I m okay with that. XO Sera.
I want her life. Not the acting part, but living far away and truly embracing your art. Traveling the world.
Her post has 1,352 likes. Still, I fight back the urge to heart it like always. It s dumb. She wouldn t even notice someone named RoseMarie liked her stuff. And even if she did, she wouldn t connect it to her niece in Sparta, Wisconsin.
My ears strain to hear the sound of the shower or a toilet flush, but the house is silent. Meaning the bathroom is mine. I scramble out of bed and yank a black Unrequited Death shirt from my top dresser drawer, then my black jean shorts from the bottom drawer.
Justin said these make my ass look hot. But last night it was Trina s ass he was grabbing behind a rack of animal print blouses in plain sight of my register. That dull ache throbs deep inside me.
I ram the shorts back in and grab some blue jean ones instead.
Those black shorts would be symbolically perfect for Justin in My Mind though. Shredded black to parallel Frida Kahlo s traditional Mexican attire in Diego in My Thoughts .
I should just shower, but I can t let inspiration slip through my fingers. If a bedroom door opens, I can beat any of the kiddos to the bathroom. I snatch my canvas and a graphite pencil from the mound of art stuff at the foot of my bed and then escape the land mines of Hollis s dirty socks and underwear to the living room. I set my canvas on Dad s Field Stream magazines, circa 2014, layering our coffee table. I ve already done the underpainting-pure cadmium red, because it ll be a good contrast to the brooding purples and darkness I ve felt since Justin broke up with me.
My pencil scrapes across the layer of acrylic as I add those raggedy, cutoff black shorts to my self-portrait with Justin s face on my forehead, his strong Greek nose, cleft chin, and square jaw. To capture his piercing blue eyes, I ll use french ultramarine and white. The bust of Dad s twelve-point buck, the deer of legend from five years ago, watches with its dead eyes. That d be an interesting element to add, especially since now I spend every night sitting on the couch watching Cops with Dad after the kiddos go to bed. A buck head mixed with a dash of Kahlo inspiration might really grab Belwyn s attention. The website said their viewbook with all the application requirements would be emailed out after Labor Day. So any day now.
I lightly sketch the buck head in a corner, its antlers twisting through the edge of the canvas.
Shut up, stupid! Sage s nails-on-chalkboard voice booms through their bedroom door adorned with princess coloring sheets and a Green Bay Packers poster.
The beasts are stirring. I grab my clothes and bolt for the bathroom.
I peel off my pj shorts and faded middle school band T-shirt. The plastic octopus shower curtain is grainy with soap scum, and all the caulking is black with mildew, but because I got here first, I get to savor a shower without fear of the hot water running out.
Today is the only day this week I m free of cash registers and fingertips blackened by dollar bills and mountains of back-to-school clothes to de-hanger. I have the whole beautiful day with Mrs. Hoffman s oils in the art room to add the finishing touches to my summer masterpiece, The Two Roses .
I dry off and get dressed. My black eyeliner pencil scrapes across my eyelids as I draw thick black lines, making sure they match on both eyes. After mascara, I blow-dry my freshly dyed platinum blonde, bluntly cut chin-length hair, then spray my long bangs sweeping across my forehead.
A tiny fist pounds on the door. Rosey, I gotta pee! Vi squeaks.
Use Mom and Dad s bathroom.
She pounds again. Mommy s in there.
Probably shooting up, because that appears to be how she starts her day now.
Ugh, fine. I pull the door open, and she pushes past me, a blur of blonde pigtails and pink Shimmer and Shine pajamas. She slams the door as soon as I slip out, muting the sound of her pee. Five-year-olds apparently have bladders the size of grapes that can hold a gallon of pee.
In the kitchen, the dishes are piled even higher than yesterday because Mom s not doing them anymore. C mon, Captain Jobless, it s not like you re even watching the kids. Ever since summer school finished, they ve just been running around Sparta.
Morning sunlight filters through the lace curtains covering the kitchen window, refracting through three empty Miller High Life bottles. Three, Dad, really?
At the kitchen table, Sage and Hollis shovel Lucky Charms into their mouths. Hollis sits up tall today, so you can really see the six inches he now has on Sage. Dad sets the milk and box of Lucky Charms in front of my bowl. Today, his tucked-in dusty-blue shirt accentuates his steel-blue eyes. His beer belly hangs over his John Deere belt buckle.
Had a dream last night you were the champ of the whole dart league. Won it with a pink dart. Dad pops a mounding spoonful of cereal into his mouth. A dribble of milk runs into his blond five-o clock shadow. He cuffs it away.
Pink? Ugh. Bet Travis and them would flip their shit if I used a pink dart.
Language, Rosey.
Flip their crap just doesn t work, Dad. Lucky Charms clink as I shake some into my bowl. I get an unusually high ratio of pots of gold.
He messes up my hair.
Stop. I bat his huge oil-stained hand away.
Don t think I can mess that hair up. Dad shakes his hand out like something s stuck to it, wearing a million-dollar grin that allegedly melted all the girls hearts senior year when he was voted best smile. I swear you use Gorilla Glue.
I roll my eyes with a smile I can t stop.
Pink s the worst, Sage spouts from behind the Great Wall of Cereal Boxes she s constructed around herself in the epitome of eight-year-old orneriness.
Violet bounds out of the bathroom. No, pink s the best! she erupts with such conviction you d think Sage said the sky was green. She jumps into her chair next to me. Judging by her pink nose, she d been running around outside without sunblock again. Freckles speckle her cheeks.
Mom and Dad s bedroom door creaks open. Mom emerges, a shadow against the sun seeping through their curtains. She cuts through the muted light of the living room. A sheen of sweat glistens on her forehead, dotted with fresh red scars from picking.
Mommy! Vi launches at her and crushes her slight frame into a hug.
Even from across the kitchen, I can smell the stench of her dealer Jeremy s secondhand smoke.
Hiya, Vi Pie. Her voice has a slight slur. Mom s fi