The Sun Times praises Lemon

Over the years I have devoured each new Strube novel, beginning with Alex and Zee (short-listed for the W. H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award) and ending with Planet Reese, also nominated for a literary award. Each has featured enough realistic characters and acid-tongued prose to keep me coming back for more.

But I wasn’t quite prepared for Lemon, a teenager with not one but three mothers, a father few could love, several boy-struck friends, and Vaughn, an environmentalist who spends his time in trees, protecting them. Lemon, whose battles with teachers and counselors are epic, also volunteers in a cancer ward for children where she bonds with the patients.

Lemon (one of her mothers named her Limone) is a walking thesaurus of quips, sarcastic witticisms, and dead-on observations. The daughter of the school’s principal (who has just been stabbed by a student wielding a letter opener), Lemon is an obsessed reader whose books divert her from the realities of teenage living. Dickens, Tolstoy, the Brontes, Jane Austen replace the mall, boys, and booze in her life.

All Lemon ever wanted was someone to really care about her. 'I mean really care. Die for me. Animals die protecting their young. Mutti was ready to die for Marianne. Anne Frank’s mother starved herself to feed her daughters. Anne Boleyn had her head chopped off to protect Elizabeth.'

Adolescence is a condition that some do not survive. Not Lemon. In Strube’s wonderfully disturbing new novel, Lemon battles her way through, surviving coming-of-age with wisdom beyond her years. Do you have a difficult teen or were your high school years an agony? You might find comfort in Lemon.