4.5 stars

When Vicki’s family is forced to move in with her grandmother it turns into a very crowded apartment. Aside from grandma there is also her brother, sister and mother.

Vicki is 14 years old for, for me this bordered on the line between middle grade and YA, which isn’t a bad thing. This is a story of her family. It's also a story of friendship as Vicki makes friends with Rosa and James, 2 teens would live in the same building.

I felt this book was well written, it flowed nicely with interesting characters, secrets, as well as dealing with past hurts. There was growth and not just for Vicki. It's a short book, some might say you need more time for some depth but for me this length worked nicely.

My thanks to BooksGoSocial for a digital arc in exchange for honest review.

I’m not really sure what to say about this book. It’s listed as middle grade, though I feel like it’s one of those in-between titles that’s hard to define. The main character is fourteen, so slightly older than most MG protagonists, but the writing is too juvenile to be considered YA. Then there are references to vaping and a kid character using words like douchey and talking about how “some priests are real pervs.” So.

In short, Back to Bainbridge is about a girl named Vicki whose family moves from upstate New York to her grandmother’s apartment in the city. It’s a tight fit, as Vicki has to share her room with her two younger siblings, Judith and Dylan. She worries about her single mother, Susan, while her deadbeat dad is purportedly living the life of his dreams in Ojai. When Vicki befriends the building manager’s daughter, Rosa, she is given a key to the basement, where the tenants store old possessions. Among them are a collection of childhood stuffed animals, a red bicycle, and trinkets that belonged to Vicki’s late grandfather.

She also strikes up two unexpected friendships, one with a grouchy elderly woman named Miss Kirby, and the other with a boy named James. Rosa doesn’t approve of James, whose bad-boy tendencies include 1) skateboarding and 2) vaping. Vicki senses that James isn’t as tough as he seems, and she turns out to be right. She’s also the only person who manages to get close to Miss Kirby. Most people are afraid of the old woman, but as Vicki learns more about her life, she understands that she’s just lonely and sad.

As Vicki gets to know her neighbors, she also learns about her own family’s past. Her desire to track down her father is a main plotline, but there are some secrets she’s yet to uncover.

I wish I liked this better, but the writing just didn’t do it for me. The characters are flat and basically defined by one trait or characteristic. Even though Vicki’s the main character and the story is told from her perspective, I still don’t feel like I really know anything about her. Her siblings seem to have their own issues that aren’t really addressed. Dylan, the 10-year-old, is extremely babyish, while 12-year-old Judith grinds her teeth at night and only talks in snarky comebacks. By the time I finished the book, I couldn’t understand why nobody in this family ever consulted a therapist, because they all seemed to need one.

Aside from that, the dialogue is kind of weird and stilted. The references to vaping suggest a modern setting, but something about the book felt dated, like it could have been written in the 80s or 90s. In one part, Vicki tells James that her father is the actor who plays Iron Man, which was so ridiculous I almost stopped reading. I guess Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t exist in this universe and some random no-name actor is supposed to be Iron Man, because according to James, “that actor has only one son and he’s like a grownup already.” Very convincing.

Honestly, this book just isn’t anything special. It touches on a lot of heavy subjects like parental abandonment, mental illness, religion, the death of a child, even suicide- but none of them are ever fully explored. This is just a basic MG/YA story about a dysfunctional family trying to find “home.”

I really enjoyed reading this, it had that element that I was hoping for and enjoyed from this type of book. The characters were everything that I was looking for and were written well. Norah Lally has a strong writing style and was invested in what happened to these characters.

A young teenage girl finds herself a step closer to growing up and finding herself in this must-read middle grade debut. Vicki and her younger siblings Dylan and Judith have to start over when her mom loses another job and apartment, moving them back to their grandmother’s apartment on Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx. Vicki has few things she can hold onto in her unstable young life, which makes her dream of finding her absent father all the more important to her. In the meantime, she again begins the slow process of establishing tentative roots, trying to make friends and build a life, this time with chores and structure from her grandmother. As those new responsibilities help her feel grown up and useful, she soon becomes close with Rosa, the daughter of the building’s superintendent—her heart does “a little flip” when Rosa refers to her as a “friend”—and also James, the neighborhood bad boy.

With their help, Vicki decides to try to uncover the secrets that may lead her to her father. The children’s search takes them on a small adventure that brings Vicki, for the first time, into Manhattan, a trip that Lally captures with striking detail and buoyant energy. Along the way, amid much funny and believable chatter, the new friends learn what really matters: to rely on each other, that sometimes the truth hurts, and that it’s okay to count on others to do the things we can’t do for ourselves.

Vicki is a convincing and relatable heroine, one who makes mistakes and sees the world through a sometimes hurt, vulnerable lens. Her mother is an imperfect woman who tries her best even though she frequently falls short, and the supporting cast is complex, lively, and endearing. This is a moving, empathetic read that will resonate with young readers who have ever felt alone, misunderstood, or that if one thing were somehow different the world might finally make sense.

Takeaway: Moving, empathetic must-read of growing up and discovering what matters.

Comparable Titles: Nina LaCour’s We Are Okay, Jeff Zentner’s The Serpent King.

I’ll be honest, I did not realize this would be a middle grade novel when I started reading- but I still enjoyed it a lot. The writing style and themes brought me right back to when I used to read MG, and I’m sure I would have loved this book then.
The story was very sweet, with a strong focus on family, new friendships, and how sometimes what you need is right where you are. Also, as someone who’s never been to New York (I’m not even American) any book in NYC is inherently interesting!
If you like to read Middle Grade books or know someone who does, I really recommend this adorable book about family, secrets, and finding a place to belong.