Book review - Being Toffee

Title: Being Toffee
Author: Sarah Crossan
Genre: realistic fiction
Similar books: Hello? by Lisa M. Weimer
                      Solo by Kwame Alexander
Rating:

its got heart

Summary (provided by publisher): I am not who I say I am,
and Marla isn't who she thinks she is.
I am a girl trying to forget.
She is a woman trying to remember.
Allison has run away from home and with nowhere to live finds herself hiding out in the shed of what she thinks is an abandoned house. But the house isn't empty. An elderly woman named Marla, with dementia, lives there – and she mistakes Allison for an old friend from her past named Toffee.
Allison is used to hiding who she really is, and trying to be what other people want her to be. And so, Toffee is who she becomes. After all, it means she has a place to stay. There are worse places she could be.
But as their bond grows, and Allison discovers how much Marla needs a real friend, she begins to ask herself - where is home? What is a family? And most importantly, who is she, really?

My opinion: For the most part, this is a pretty standard verse novel. It doesn't break any new ground, doesn't especially experiment with form or structure. We don't even get a lot of detail about events. This is entirely an emotional exploration. Both Allison and Marla are hiding from truths. Truths that will eventually catch up with them and force them to face reality. We see the subtle change in their relationship from one of mildly guilty convenience to real emotional connection and concern. It's not always a comfortable read but the conversation it prompts is a valuable one and well suited to the verse novel format.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley