Reviews provided by Syndetics
Publishers Weekly Review
A 16-year-old chauffeurs her crabby employer from Chicago to Dallas. "Bauer begins with an intriguing premise, weaves in unusual settings and creates an offbeat narrator to relay them. But a supporting cast of stock characters and forced dialogue may disappoint readers of her previous novels," said PW. Ages 12-up. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 UpJenna Boller, 16, has had a lot of practice at being responsible. Her mother is a nurse who works the night shift, and her younger sister yearns for attention. Jenna's long-divorced, alcoholic father embarrassingly shows up whenever he gets an occasional urge to "make it up" to her. In addition, her wise and beloved grandmother is grappling with Alzheimer's disease. So the teen's mother reluctantly agrees to let her accept a summer job driving the elderly Madeline Gladstone, the crusty and demanding president of the shoe chain for which Jenna works, from Chicago to Texas. Jenna is surprised to learn that Mrs. Gladstone has problems, too: an aching hip as well as an aching heart. Her conniving son is maneuvering to take over the company and sell out for a huge short-term gain. Jenna comes to admire and love her boss and eagerly enters into an alliance of loyal employees to save the company. In making this valiant attempt, she finds herself truly transformed. Bauer's juxtapositions are invitingyouth and age, wealth and work-a-day struggle, big-city loneliness and big-state caring, practicing alcoholism and big-hearted sobriety, stockroom wisdom and boardroom chicanery. The author creates some fabulous and sometimes flamboyant characters, witty dialogue, and memorable scenes, thus making readers really care about the intricacies of matching shoes to people and finding the right focus for Jenna as she strives to meet tall goals. Bauer's best yet.Cindy Darling Codell, Clark Middle School, Winchester, KY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Gr. 6^-10. It's downright wonderful these days to find a teenage protagonist who is smart, moral, funny, confident (mostly), and open-minded about grown-ups. Not that hulking Jenna Boller doesn't have her share of problems. A strapping five foot eleven with a strong work ethic, Jenna is an outsider at school. The fact that she spends most of her time selling shoes at Gladstone's shoe store (and loving it) doesn't help in terms of a social life. But it's her alcoholic father who is her main concern. When he suddenly comes back into her life, drunk as usual, she's not sure she can handle it. Lucky for her, rich, curmudgeonly Mrs. Gladstone, who is 73, needs someone to chauffeur her to Texas to a stockholders' meeting and help her check out the Gladstone stores along the way. It seems her son is engineering a company takeover that is breaking her heart. Like Squashed (1992), this has its introspective side as well as its share of sad moments that show the long-term damage alcoholism has on families and individuals. But it's also a warm, funny, insightful story about ordinary people who look beyond age to the things they have in common and the wisdom they can share. --Stephanie Zvirin
Horn Book Review
Jenna, newly armed with a driver's license, thought she had her summer all worked out--until Mrs. Gladstone, owner of the shoestore chain where Jenna works in Chicago, shows up and asks Jenna to drive her to Texas. A subplot about Jenna's alcoholic father is a little heavy-handed but does not impede the pedal power of this fast and funny tale of one big-boned (and big-hearted) gal's summer of discovery on the road. From HORN BOOK Fall 1998, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Book Review
A high-school student with a passion for selling shoes may be a hard sell to teenagers, but Bauer (Sticks, 1996, etc.) makes 16-year-old, too-tall Jenna Boller a convincing narrator in this story of love and loss in the shoe business. President and owner of shoe stores from Chicago to Texas, the elderly Mrs. Gladstone appoints Jenna, who works in one of the stores, her personal driver. As the Chicago skyline recedes, Jenna and her companion head for the Lone Star state and a stockholders' meeting, taking in shoe stores from Peoria to Little Rock, where Mrs. Gladstone uncovers not only a decline in the quality of shoes being sold, but her son's plot for a company takeover. Sharp dialogue and caustic commentary from Jenna mark the journey, which lags somewhere around Kansas; revitalizing the plot is the entrance of Harry Bender, world's greatest shoe salesman. Through him and others, Jenna learns much more than the rules of the road (""Never eat at a place called MOM'S, because it's a safe bet Mom's been dead for years"") and business acumen. Jenna's alcoholic father hovers in the background, more plot manipulation than fully realized character, but his presence throws Jenna's new maturity into relief. It's an unlikely hem's journey, and Bauer's dry humor assures readers that all's well that ends well--if not in corporate takeovers, at least in the business of growing up. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.