Featured Title: BROKEN SOUP, by Jenny Valentine

Happy Presidents' Day, readergirlz! We hope you're getting some good reading in over the long weekend! 


If you're looking for a recommendation, how about today's Featured Title, Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine? 

Positive.

Negative.

It's how you look at it. . . .

Someone shoves a photo negative into Rowan's hands. She is distracted but, frankly, she has larger problems to worry about. Her brother is dead. Her father has left. Her mother won't get out of bed. She has to take care of her younger sister. And keep it all together . . .

But Rowan is curious about the mysterious boy and the negative. Who is he? Why did he give it to her? The mystery only deepens when the photo is developed and the inconceivable appears.

Everything is about to change for Rowan. . . . Finally, something positive is in her life.

Award-winning author Jenny Valentine delivers a powerful and life-affirming story of grief, friendship, and healing that will resonate long after the last page.

This month's theme here at the blog is Loyalty, and Broken Soup is a complex matrix of relationships both friendly and familial alike. In the aftermath of her brother's death, Rowan finds loyalty and love from some unexpected new friends; in the end, she learns to rely on these newcomers as a sort of makeshift extended family itself. 

I won't say too much for fear of giving away the ending of this quiet, but unexpected story that Publishers Weekly calls "a solid tale of what it takes to grow up and how to ask for help." This is one you'll want to read for yourself!

In the meantime, tell us: what are some of your favorite stories of unconventional "families," and the ways that their members show each other support?