“Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me is an absolutely real, raw and emotional read, and it’s a book that touched my heart with every page.” – Katie McGarry, critically acclaimed author of Only a Breath Apart Fifteen-year-old JL Markham’s life used to be filled with carnival nights and hot summer days spent giggling with her forever best friend Aubrey about their families and boys. Together, they were … and boys. Together, they were unstoppable. But they aren’t the friends they once were.
With JL’s father gone on long term business, and her mother struggling with her mental illness, JL takes solace in the tropical butterflies she raises, and in her new, older boyfriend, Max Gordon. Max may be rough on the outside, but he has the soul of a poet (something Aubrey will never understand). Only, Max is about to graduate, and he’s going to hit the road – with or without JL.
JL can’t bear being left behind again. But what if devoting herself to Max not only means betraying her parents, but permanently losing the love of her best friend? What becomes of loyalty, when no one is loyal to you?
Gae Polisner’s Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me is a story about the fragility of female friendship, of falling in love and wondering if you are ready for more, and of the glimmers of hope we find by taking stock in ourselves.
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Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me is an amazingly well written book about 15 year old Jean Louise referred to JL who is navigating her very complicated and complex life with an absentee father, a mother with mental illness, a seemingly distant best friend Aubrey, and now dealing with a new boyfriend, 19 yo Max. JL is left alone to face all these worries. The book is poignant and beautifully written carefully addressing the fragility of young love, friendships, family and discovering for yourself life experiences in a harsh world. It is a tough and emotional read, but written with so much understanding for the struggles of what our youth faces. I enjoyed this book a lot.
Gae Polisner rips your heart out with this story of innocence and friendship lost. I identified so much with JL as she struggled to understand the unfathomable. This book will make you think and feel –and possibly, hopefully, heal.
The writing is superb–just gorgeous. The human insights are equally stunning. This is a book everyone will love–and it is one we all need.
Gae Polisner has done it again. I absolutely loved this beautiful, heart-wrenching story about friendship, family, and first love, and what happens when they all fall apart. Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me is a truly special book.
Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me is an absolutely real, raw and emotional read, and it’s a book that touched my heart with every page.
Thank you Wednesday Books for an advanced copy. I voluntarily reviewed this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
Jack Kerouac Is Dead To Me
By: Gae Polisner
REVIEW
Once upon a time, in a freshman literature class, I made a total fool of myself by mispronouncing Kerouac. I never made that mistake again, and I’ve been a fan of his work ever since. So, obviously, I had to read Jack Kerouac Is Dead To Me. Written partially as a letter and alternating between past and present, this is the story of 15 year old JL (Jean-Louis). Her father is absent, working across the country, promising to come home, but he never does. His leaving was the catalyst for JL’s mother’s decline into deep depression and now, a dissociative disorder. I guess you could say both parents are absent. JL had a best friend, Aubrey, who has lately distanced herself. JL does have one person, Max, her 19 year old boyfriend. Can you guess what he wants? He’s going to California after graduation, and JL wants to go with him, despite his constant pressure to sleep with him. Otherwise, JL raises beautiful butterflies, and they are a great comfort to her. There is such sadness in this story. JL’s mother drinks, writes letters to the deceased Kerouac, doesn’t know where she is most of the time and flits around the house like a wounded butterfly. JL mends a broken butterfly wing, but there is no mending her mother. I despised her father as a self centered jerk. Who just leaves like that? There were moments when I wanted to shake some sense into this girl. But, she’s 15, alone, desperate for love, affection, an escape, because things are terrible. Every time JL reaches for something that might make her life better, the universe slaps her down again. In the midst of this, she makes some bad choices, but I don’t blame her. It’s painful and emotionally hollowing to read the trauma she experienced. I disliked the ending. It’s rushed, and no spoilers, but something major happens and is glossed over like it’s okay and never happened. JL is content with it, but there is no way a 15 year old is mature enough to be fine after all that. Life would not go on as it does in the book. This story is cutting, devastating, relentlessly truthful and so relevant for older young adult readers(due to language and sexual content). Definitely worth reading!
JL lives at home with her parents, only her father has been mia for a while working in California. The fact that his job keeps extending his stay out there is taking its toll on her mother, who is drinking a lot. In addition to her drinking, she’s writing letters to Kerouac when she’s lucid enough to do so. JL’s grandmother had a very brief encounter with the author when he was alive and so JL’s mother has a bit of an obsession with him. That obsession is resulting in multiple letters being sent to him a week.
It’s all too much for JL and so she escapes into a world with her friends and her boyfriend Max. Though her friendship with Aubrey has gone south too as she doesn’t much care for him, the age gap, or his drinking and smoking pot. He’s a bit of a bad boy, a 19-year-old bad boy to JL’s 15. And because she doesn’t have Aubrey to lean on, JL unhealthily latches onto Max as she has no one to hang out with.
There aren’t a ton of reviews out as I’m writing my own but I’m a bit surprised that no one else is writing about the age gap. Max calls her jailbait which is disrespectful, and he gets her to smoke pot. Despite him saying he’s willing to wait for her to be ready to have sex, he isn’t really willing as he brings it up *a lot*. A girl at 15 is going through vastly different things than a guy at 19, and it’s a shame that there is no one in JL’s life outside of Aubrey who is expressing concern about her relationship. (and I get people will defend this and say they’re just two kids, age doesn’t matter, etc), but not only can I not get on board with it, I feel sad that JL didn’t have more support (especially seeing her mother liked Max without really knowing him).
Aside from the age problem, I think this was very well-written. JL has a lot of great insight regarding her life. Polisner touched on a lot of topics including teen dating, sex, mental illness, being quasi-raised by a single parent, and alcohol. I thought the way she posed the book as JL writing a journal length letter to Aubrey about everything that has happened since the two stopped being friends was a unique way to write the book.