Maxine Banks is Getting Married
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Lori Aurelia Williams, the acclaimed author of When Kambia Elaine Flew in From Neptune, presents an honest and endearing YA novel about what happens when a headstrong seventeen year old from Houston, Texas convinces her boyfriend to marry her, and then finds out that marriage isn't quite what she had in mind.
Desperate to escape a neglectful mother and her string of boyfriends, Maxine Banks pretends she is pregnant in order to marry her boyfriend, Brian, despite warnings of his reluctance. The cracks in this unsteady foundation soon appear when Brian takes up with another girl, leaving Maxine to care for his younger cousin. But Maxine is nothing if not determined and willing to learn from her mistakes, and as she straddles the worlds of high school and adulthood, she draws strength and support from a community she didn’t even know she had.
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Desperate to leave home, 17-year-old Maxine fakes a pregnancy so her mother will let her marry her boyfriend, Brian ("I could hear Mama taking out her unhappiness on the pots and pans I left drying in the sink.... The banging didn't bother me. All I could hear were the wedding bells ringing in my ears"). But Brian soon leaves her for a "trashy" schoolmate, forcing Maxine to look after his troubled teenage cousin, Demonee, in exchange for money for her mortgage and bills. Williams's fans will recognize the well-drawn, impoverished Houston neighborhood and many characters (including Maxine) from her other books. Readers may sometimes feel bogged down by the expository dialogue and heavy plotting (among the many twists, Maxine discovers that Brian's new girlfriend is actually pregnant, and she walks in on Demonee holding hands with another girl). But the never-ending drama keeps the pages turning quickly, and although Williams can belabor Maxine's delusions about her future, Maxine is a gutsy and likable protagonist; her gradual realization that she needs to grow up, while not unexpected, still comes as a relief. Ages 14 up.
