AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I never thought I had the attention span to write a novel (yes, I admit it: I'm too easily distracted), but once I started doing it, I really got hooked. It felt like I was creating a world and writing about people I was getting to know and care about. It also helped that I stumbled on a writing process that worked well for me. The morning was my best writing time, so I'd pour myself a cup of coffee and get down to work. My chapters (actually, I call them "scenes" in this book because the book is a hybrid between a novel and a screenplay) were fairly short (around two to three pages), so my goal each day was to write a new chapter. But before doing that, I'd first go back to the chapter I wrote the day before and revise it extensively. Somehow that got me back into the rhythm of the story, and the revisions came easily- maybe because my subconscious had been mulling things over from the day before. The first drafts of the new chapter were pretty rough, but I would slog through to make sure I had something down that propelled the story further, knowing that I'd be tweaking it the next morning.
The idea of Shelter was rumbling inside me for a very long time. Back in junior high school (which coincided with the age of the atomic bomb), a friend of mine confided in me that her family had a bomb shelter underneath their home. She had a pretty rough family life, and felt alienated from her parents and siblings most of the time, so it made me wonder what it would be like for them all to be stuck underground together while the rest of the world was being destroyed. It felt like the real bomb was blowing up in her family, and that was the true danger- yet they couldn't see it. All these years later, this perspective became a frame for my book. So my advice to writers is this: don't ever let go of those weird impressions or zany experiences (in fact, write them down) because they may have potential for a great book someday!
Publishers Weekly
Structured in the form of a present-day videotaped journal, Whitmore's moving,
often funny first novel shares Skyler Baxter's impressions of her 16th summer
when her mother built a fallout shelter. The teen begins her narrative with
a bang: "It's where I lost my virginity and also my mind. In that order.
But then I got it back again. My mind, that is." The shelter is the brainstorm
of Skyler's romance-writer mother, who is determined to keep her family safe
should disaster strike. But the Baxter family is already starting to show
signs of stress fractures and, ironically, the underground room becomes anything
but a safe harbor. Skyler's twin brother, Will, hides his illegal drugs there
and almost dies from an overdose, and it's where Skyler loses her virginity
to Will's best friend, realizing too late that she has made a terrible mistake.
Throughout the novel, readers feel the teen narrator's growing sense of helplessness
in fixing her family's problems. Besides fearing that Will is following in
the footsteps of their estranged, drug-addict father, Skyler is also distressed
about her mother's relationship with a controlling new boyfriend. Spare narrative
charged with emotion eloquently expresses the growing tensions in the Baxter
household. Readers will sigh with relief when Skyler temporarily stops playing
the role of observer to take action, reaching out to save the people she loves.
VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates)
This commendable debut novel features a likeable narrator who survives a summer
filled with adolescent rites of passage.
Children's Frontlist
Shelter's screenplay set-up quickly draws readers in to explore the powerful
and mystifying bond between twins. When Sky's teacher talks her into making
a video diary over her 16th summer, Sky doesn't expect to be chronicling her
family's disintegration. The stage is set when Sky and her brother realize
that the backyard shelter is the perfect place for their summer exploits.
Sky's authentic, sardonic voice-overs smoothly navigate through the minefield
of adolescent angst and create an engrossing video time capsule.
Kirkus Reviews
Determined to keep her family safe, Sky's mother announces her plans to build
a bomb shelter in their backyard. Little does she know that the dangers facing
Sky and her twin brother Will are not going to be falling out of the sky,
but may be found in the one place that she wanted to be a safe haven for all
of them. Sky thinks filming her life for the summer will result in a few minutes
of boring footage, but Will's destructive habits and her crush on his best
friend make her art project more real that she could have imagined. While
the premise of a single mom attempting to relate to and protect her teenage
children is familiar, the quirky humor keeps it from being stale. The narrative
is constructed around the film project, complete with prompts for sound effects.
The
Post-Standard
requires Acrobat
Reader