Title: Stepping Off
Author: Jordan Sonnenblick
Publication: June 4, 2024
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Genre: YA Fiction
Pages: 336
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SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)
Jesse Dienstag’s favorite sweatshirt says, “The real world isn’t real.” That’s the slogan of the vacation-home community in Pennsylvania where his family has always spent every vacation and weekend for as long as he can remember. In the summer of 2019, as Jesse is about to enter his junior year of high school in New York City, he desperately wants to believe the slogan is true. For one thing, the two girls he loves — equally and desperately — are in Pennsylvania, and all the stresses and pressures of his daily life and school are in New York. But when his parents stop talking to each other, it gets harder and harder for Jesse to maintain his dream life in Pennsylvania. And when Covid shuts New York City down in March 2020 just days after Jesse’s mother leaves his father, Jesse’s worlds collide.
REVIEW:
**A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**
Stepping Off gives you the illusion it will be a feel-good summer YA Fiction novel, but it’s depths range farther than the eye can see and brings a lot more to the table. The story follows Jesse as he is in summer with his two best friends, both girls and both beautiful in their own ways. Also… Jesse loved them both. Awkward? From the start, I felt bad for Jesse. He had himself in such a predicament. There was going to be no easy way out of this situation without utter chaos. Every adult knows that. With that said, I loved the dynamic of these three friends. They seemed to balance each other out well and you can feel the amount they care about each other.
Then things start to spiral more than they already had. Jesse’s mom has left his dad, Covid has shut down the world, people are mad at each other and his life seems to be crumbling. I really felt the emotions this kid was going through. I felt he handled a lot of his issues wrong by not mentioning it and trying to deal with everything internally. That is likely a teenage thing, because that bothered me. My only issue with this story was there was a lot going on, but not enough focus on one individual problem. I get the point was probably that Jesse’s life had a LOT of problems, but when I read a story I want there to be a focal point and I’m not sure I felt that with this. There was a lot of small and big things happening and I got a little whiplash trying to keep up with each problem.
With that said, I felt the story overall was good. There was a lot of deeper emotions when reading than I expected from a YA fiction, which is really nice. It wasn’t super fluffy and had a lot of hard-hitting topics. I think more YA books could benefit from some deeper topics. I will definitely check out more from Sonnenblick in the future. You should absolutely check out Stepping Off if you love a great YA Fiction that starts in summer and carries on into the “real world” as Jesse would say.
