Review: I Am Here Now
I Am Here Now by Barbara Bottner Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Rachel Fremmer Buy at Bookshop.org In I Am Here Now , Barbara Bottner uses free verse to tell the story of Maisie’s first two or so years of high school while dealing with an emotionally (and sometimes physically) abusive mother. Maisie loves to draw and paint and her friend Rachel’s mother, an artist, takes her under her wing. Maisie develops as an artist but has to learn the painful truth that her surrogate mother is not perfect either. Maisie also struggles with simultaneously resenting and trying to protect her younger brother, whom everyone knows is gay without ever saying as much And like many a teenage girl, she contends with her changing body, a crush, and the complexities of female friendship. I Am Here Now is set in the Bronx in 1961 and I wish a little more attention had been given to that time and place. Maisie does speak repeatedly of longing to leave the Bronx but it’s not exactly clear why, other than its