The Possibility of Fireflies (a.k.a: It made me cry like I knew it would, which makes it a good book!)

The Possibility of Firefliesby Dominique PaulOne of the main reasons that I love Young Adult novels so much is that when I was a Young Adult myself, I had a lot of angst and depression and I would read all sorts of books where the main character would be suffering as I suffered. Since I was a little girl I had always had trouble with "friends". I was that girl that was bullied and tormented psychologically and yet was shy and naive and just wanted to be loved. When you get older and people change, friendships get lost in the chaos of new schools, new bodies, puberty, etc.. One of my most favourite books of all time is Thirteen by Candice F. Ransom. (First thought : Yay! She has a website! Second thought: Gah! It doesn't work in Firefox!) That particular book hit close to home as the main character not only looked like me on the cover, but was going through the difficulty of being the clumsy, odd girl and growing apart from her best friend. The book was released in 1990 and although I have plans to write a post dedicated to that book by itself, I wanted to introduce it as the novel that got me hooked on angsty Young Adult coming of age stories.Ellie is a fourteen year old girl living with her older sister and drunk of a mother in Maryland somewhere. The story follows Ellie through her final days in school before the summer holiday starts in June. Her mother is abusive and states hourly how much she doesn't want her children, her sister has fallen in with the wrong crowd and then Leo appears out of nowhere, staying with his folks across the street. Leo is 20 and in a band and is instantly taken by Ellie (but not in that creepy older guy hitting on younger girl way).There isn't much of a way of action in the story, just what goes on in Ellie's head. In the end she makes her choice and manages to escape it all and I swear I cried for the last 25 pages of this book as Ellie spreads her wings and flies away.The book was short and a very quick read and though I have read better written books I loved it for what it was. Who Ellie was. And I love the title because how can you not see hope in the possibility of fireflies?