Sixteen-year-old Leila has recently been adopted. But one thing she hasn't told her new parents about: the whispering on the breeze that she occasionally hears, the nagging feeling that someone is trying to talk to her. The only person she's told is her old friend from the group home, Sarika. While attending summer school, Leila and Sarika join an environmental club. Leila has always felt a special affinity with plants and trees. While out on what becomes a disastrous date in a local park, the voices Leila hears become louder and more clear. She discovers a grove, and the key to the mysteries of her biological parents. But she may have discovered it all too late, as the grove is about to be demolished and developed, and the poison that is leaching into the grove seems to be affecting all of the local wildlife, and Leila herself. Leila must work with her new parents, her friend Sarika, and a young park ranger (and love interest?) named Landon to stop the demolition of the grove before she loses everything.

So I first encountered Eric Smith via BookRiot, and especially since I've been listening to their new podcast Hey YA! (Which I really enjoy and highly recommend.) I also started following him on Twitter at about the time I decided to pay more attention to the publishing world and especially follow some writers/editors/agents, not only because I'm a bibliophile, but also so I could be forewarned about books that were getting critical acclaim but didn't stand up to scrutiny from bookland people I trusted. So I was excited to be given the opportunity to read an early ARC from NetGalley of this new book. Can we just admire the cover art for a second, because it's flipping gorgeous.

I felt a lot of feelings while reading this book, because Smith packs a lot of feelings into it: Leila's struggle between wanting to be loyal in a way to her biological parents, and wanting to fall all the way in and belong with her new parents. Her growing feelings for a boy who seems to understand her, and especially to be more sensitive to her past and her birthmark. Jon and Liz's love for Leila and their desire to be good parents and enough for her. The pain that Leila's bio-mom feels at not being able to care for her and having to send her away when she was so young. When Leila gets very ill towards the end, the heartwrenching scene where she collapses into Jon's arms as she calls him "Dad" for the first time? Yeah, there were some good, fat teardrops rolling down my face.

I think this is one of the most nuanced and realistic portrayals of fostering and adoption that I've seen, and it makes a lot of sense, as Smith talks seems to be pretty open about his own experiences being adopted. (He even edited a collection of adoption-themed stories in a book called Welcome Home, which I haven't read yet but about which I've heard really good things.) The fact that Leila has a visible birthmark on her face created an external reason for her to not feel accepted, that paralleled well with her internal reasons for not feeling accepted. It also came back into play when they discover how she is connected to the grove, as the birthmark becomes something of a harbinger of impending ill for Leila. Leila is eminently relatable, not necessarily because of anything specific that happens to her (and there are definitely some weird, otherworldly things), but because she often feels so uncomfortable and out of place, and sometimes angry. Who hasn't felt that way?

Her relationship with Sarika was also well developed. The sarcastic way they communicate with each other is the way I am with every girlfriend I've ever had, and it made me feel like they would've been girls I hung out with when I was a teenager. Leila's relationship with Landon felt natural and adorable, and the conflict didn't seem contrived and didn't last excessively long, both of which seem to be a hard balance to find for many YA books.

I did feel like there could have been a bit more explanation about the connection between the grove and the impact of its destruction on the park's and Philadelphia's ecosystem, as that seemed a bit cobbled together and unclear. I think part of it may have to do with the mythological nature of the grove, but it wasn't obvious what Smith was going for there. Some of the prose was a bit clunky, but honestly, the visceral feelings that are portrayed and the magic of the story counteracted any frustration at specific phrases that seemed unnatural.

The mean girls were a little one-dimensional, but that's pretty typical of mean girls. And though I think that it would be easy to discount Shawn (Leila's one-time love interest) as just a dick of a character, I actually think his arc in this book made him one of the more human. He's well-meaning, but doesn't get the execution quite right. He's insensitive, but he genuinely seems apologetic and interested in learning from his mistakes. I know a lot of humans in real life like that.

In general, this book has a lot of feels, a mostly happy ending, some elements of otherworldliness, and a relatable and awesome protagonist.

The book won't be released until May, but you can find out more information and preorder it here.

This book starts off pretty strong, but kind of goes downhill and bit and plateaus from there. I felt that it read like an early draft (which, seeing as it's an ARC, it kind of is) and that there are a lot of things I feel could benefit from changing before it's published. The story, however, I absolutely LOVED, for many reasons: 1) that Leila was a foster kid and is dealing with the emotions of being adopted, 2) that she's somehow telepathically connected to trees, or tree-spirits, 3) that she's super into the environment, 4) this takes place in Philadelphia, which provides no specific additive to the story other than I thought it nice to imagine, and 5) the main plot of the story involves saving a park and an old mansion from destruction. The carry-out of the story, however, felt a little forced, as if the author hadn’t quite figured out where he was going or which parts of the story were going to be important. There were quite a few references to modern day obsessions, like Tumblr, which I personally am not a fan of because they immediately date a book. Also, as someone who has since grown out of Tumblr, it immediately made me feel more disconnected with the characters. Most of the dialogue was okay, but there were definitely some times that I was cringing pretty bad. It felt like the author really had no idea how anyone would actually act in certain situations (especially the teenagers) so he just made it up and left it there (kind of like an awkward adult trying to fit in with young people). The plot points were good to move the story along, but felt badly connected. The underlying plot of Leila calling her adopted parents Mom and Dad felt unnecessary. I understand that for a kid like her, it would be a big deal, but had nothing to do with the main plot and was more of a distraction. I detected a little bit of 'special snowflake' syndrome in some of the characters - before we realise how awful of a person Jessica is, there is a pretty obvious passage where it's clear we aren't supposed to like her simply because she's carrying a makeup clutch and Leila isn't about that. I did like the idea of Leila and Sarika joining the environmental club, but that brings up my next point. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out the point of the existence of Shawn, ESPECIALLY because he was introduced as a love interest. His story goes nowhere. It makes it incredibly confusing when we meet Landon, the real love interest, because you can't figure out who is supposed to be who. Not only that, but Shawn is an AWFUL character. He is the one who suffers from being a special snowflake most of all. That scene where he threatens to not give credit to the kids who are just in the club to get credit? Where the hell does that authority come from? He's immensely inconsiderate to Leila and does not suit her at all, so the concept of them having “tension” (when believe me, they did not) is baffling. Landon, while definitely not perfect either, makes WAY more sense as Leila's love interest, so I cannot understand why Shawn cannot be ditched and Landon introduced earlier in the story. I definitely called Landon being Toothless (I have the Kindle notes to prove it), but it felt awkward a bit just because it didn't feel like it was him when you considered how he and Leila interacted IRL and online. The characters of Jon and Lisabeth were pretty poorly created, and given way too much influence on Leila considering how poorly they were written. I was so upset with Jon when he tried to convince Leila to not protest against the amphitheatre just because it would be awkward for him at board meetings. For crying out loud, isn't he an environmentalist? Isn't he supposed to care about endangered species?! The owl was cute and clearly brought Leila and Landon together, but there's this whole idea that he would hate being called Milly because his name is Milford and “all owls must have old man names”. No, he wouldn't. He is an owl. The reveal that Jessica was the source of the decay was sooooo obvious I can't believe I didn't see it coming, but I think that's because I simply expected more. She's such a poor antagonist anyways, and the hallway scene where she admits to poisoning the grove is so cheesy it feels like she's a super villain who is like "I'll get you next time children!"

I haven't mentioned the whole dryad thing yet because I really wanted to get all that out of the way first. This part of the plotline was the bit that I was most disappointed in. First of all, the voices in Leila's head just don't seem right. I know that in the summary they are described as the grove calling to her, so it really should be no surprise, but they were written as if they were a mental health thing, which made me believe that they were going to tackle that topic, which I am on board for because it still isn't talked about enough. But nope, it's the trees. The reveal that the tree is Leila's mother is approached so poorly. It comes as a surprise not because she's a tree, but because there was really no build-up that Leila's birth parents were something she was hugely concerned about. It would have been better if there was no parental connection at all, or maybe just that Leila had an affinity for nature and that's why she could hear the voices. Not only that but the fact that Leila started fading away when the grove did was also kind of awkward and didn't serve too much of a point other than to illustrate that she's connected to it. The part about the grove being responsible for all life in Philadelphia wasn't really explained that well either, it was explained more like a fact that we were simply supposed to accept, with no concern that it might be weird at all. I just cannot believe that there is this super cool story line about dryads and tree spirits that has so much potential, but the majority of the second half of the book focuses on them finding a freaking mouse in order to save the grove. The dryad plot is super cool, but simply was not given the attention it deserved.

Despite all of these points I have laid out, I still think this book deserves three stars, and probably closer to three and a half. Even though I was disappointed in the way the plot went, I still think it was pretty good. It was definitely unique (in terms of what I have read, anyway) in many many ways and I think that deserves some brownie points. That being said, the interactions between the characters sometimes did not reflect how people interact in real life at all, and at times felt like the author was trying too hard to emulate teenagers and their thoughts and mannerisms. It also felt like the book introduced way too many subplots that didn't have that much of an overall effect on the main plot. That being said, I really did like the addition of the chatboards that Leila and her friends interacted on and felt that was a unique addition. A lot of the things I have pointed out can be fixed pretty simply, and I wish this book was longer because I think that would really benefit the story and round it out more, and would especially give the characters some room to breathe and develop. Still, after ALL THAT (and I really am sorry for picking it apart like I did), I did like this book, and I would still recommend it to others because it does some pretty cool things.

Still. The world needs more dryads.

I received an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I think this book has a little bit for everyone. The main character Leila has a whole lot going on. She has grown up moving from foster home to foster home. She has just been adopted, which she is struggling with. She has one of the more common forms of depression, seasonal affective disorder. She hears voices in her head calling out for help. Mixed in with her troubles is her love for the environment. Overall it is a well written book, and I enjoyed reading it. I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book from NetGalley.

If you enjoy books with a strong message towards teens about the environment and the foster care system, this will be great

This book really spoke to me. Leila has been moved around from home to home through the foster system. The has a passion for saving the environment and she loves trees. Her best friend Sarika is the only one who knows she hears voices calling to her in the wind. It scares her but she has a system to keep them at bay.

I immensely enjoyed this book. The books main character is a young teen that has been shuffled around all her life. She has finally been adopted but shes scared to accept that they want her forever. So Leila is fighting to keep her self-neutral. Leila's character has been through some abuse and suffers from some depression. This book touches on so many different elements in just the right way. I love all the environmental things that are defined throughout the book. Then there is, of course, the supernatural that took me by total surprise. I wish that there was more. Maybe we will get a sequel. I think the book was written beautifully and I would recommend it to everyone.