The Earth is for Dancing

by Lorca Damon

YA Contemporary

Book Description

Sam is a fifteen-year-old drug orphan living with her custodial grandmother who is stricken with late-stage Alzheimer’s. She struggles to fill the role of caregiver to her grandmother while keeping her little family a secret from the authorities who would send Gamma to a state facility and Sam to foster care. Just because her life isn’t hard enough, there are still boys to have crushes on, essays to write for horrible English teachers, and a squad full of bullies to torment her on a daily basis.

MY THOUGHTS: 5 OUT OF 5 FLEURS DE LIS

The Earth is for Dancing by Lorca Damon

Sam is a 15 year old girl who’s been taking care of her Alzheimer’s stricken grandmother alone for the past five years. But don’t you dare feel sorry for her–she wouldn’t have it any other way. Sam would have a hard enough life with just this, but add on the pressures of being a teenager, getting bullied at school, and trying to stay under the radar so as not to be turned over to social services, and it seems Sam is climbing a pretty impossible mountain. When things start falling apart, Sam will find out that she’s not as alone in the world as she thought…and sometimes it’s OK to just be 15.

This book was a quick, heart-filling read, and it had a little of everything. Samantha is, understandably, incredibly mature for someone so young. Her grandmother was the one that raised her when her drug addict parents disappeared from her life, so Samantha feels that taking care of her is just the thing she needs to do. Sam has a very matter of fact attitude about everything, and while she’s not smiley-happy all the time, she doesn’t let herself stay on the negative side of things either. She just does what must be done, no questions asked and without even thinking of asking anyone for help.

Sam’s been best friends with her neighbor, a boy also named Sam, for her whole life. It just never dawned on her that he could be a potential love interest–not that she ever though about love at all. But Other Sam is a great friend and the only one she has in the world, so naturally he becomes someone for her to lean on. Their romance didn’t really get much development, it just kind of blossomed out of nowhere–which is often what happens with two people who were already friends to begin with.

This isn’t an action filled page turner, but I read it fast anyway because I just loved Sam so much and I wanted to see how things turned out for her. She is a great character, and I was totally happy with the ending of this book. This author has a nice, easy to read writing style and I’d love to read more from her.

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About the Author

I am a teacher, writer, and all-around thing-doer. Not professionally. Well, the teaching thing and the writing thing I do professionally, but the doer-thing is just stuff that I… do. Like triathlons and cookie-baking contests.