Take me with you when you go by David Levithan and Jennifer Niven

An epistolary novel told in the dual perspectives of Ezra and his sister Bea, Take Me With You When You Go chronicles the aftermath of Bea’s sudden disappearance from their family home and small town, including the discovery of family secrets and hard truths neither sibling was prepared for. 

Bea leaves with no trace other than an email address hidden where only Ezra would find it, abandoning her brother to face the wrath of their neglectful mother and abusive stepfather. As Ezra learns to navigate the loose ends that Bea has left in her wake, he discovers what it means to be truly vulnerable with those that love you, that love should always be unconditional, and that sometimes it’s up to us to face our own battles - however ugly they may be. Meanwhile, Bea learns that abandoning everything that she has ever known looks very different than she imagined, and that hope can come from the strangest of places. 

With twists and turns scattered throughout the novel, Levithan and Niven depict a captivating and heart wrenching chapter of Bea and Ezra’s lives. The dual perspectives juxtapose each other, with each new challenge providing extreme but important messages to the reader, culminating in the mutual understanding that you are worthy of love and acceptance regardless of the hardships that you’ve faced and the ways that you have coped with them. Your story truly is yours to write. At its heart, this is a story of found family and of unshakeable sibling love in the face of adversity. Recommended for readers aged 15 years and older due to the vivid descriptions of abusive family dynamics, and extreme acting out behaviours. 

Themes: Coming of Age, Sibling Relationships, LGBTQIA+, Romance, Abuse (Family Violence), Family Secrets, Missing Persons.

Daniella Chiarolli