Title: In Between Days
Author: Camryn Garrett
Genres: Contemporary
Pages: 244
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Copy: ARC from publisher
Availability: Available Now
Summary: When her mother refuses entry to a stranger named Richard at her father’s funeral, 17-year-old Mira Howard doesn’t understand why. But snooping through her father’s things reveals that Richard was her father’s boyfriend—a boyfriend she never knew about. In fact, Mira never even knew for sure that her dad was gay. Hoping to feel more connected to her late father, Mira reaches out to Richard without telling her mom, who is still angry from the divorce. As Mira and Richard become closer, Mira gains more and more insight into the side of her father that she never got to see.
Grieving that she never got to connect with her dad about their shared queerness, Mira asks that Richard teach her “how to be queer” while she navigates a new crush on her co-worker, which brings her out of her diary and into the real world.
But as Mira grows more confident in herself, she finds it hard to keep her relationship with Richard a secret, questioning why her family never talked about her father’s sexuality in the first place. Soon Mira has to decide if she wants to keep the peace or honor her father’s memory by being her truest self.
Review: I’ve really loved Camryn Garrett’s previous novels but this one, for some odd reason, I struggled with in the beginning. I understood that Mira has gone through a tragic event, losing her father, and that she was socially awkward, but there was something about her that really irritated me. I found her almost too simplistic in her thinking that made me read her as younger than she actually was. Mira commenting on topics such as taking APUSH, and being a literary magazine editor contrasted with the simple, almost innocent childlike way of thinking really perplexed me as these two aspects of her character created a dichotomy that didn’t make sense. But…as I continued to read and the novel fully developed I began to really feel for Mira and the journey she was going on. I realized that this story is her moment when she fully sheds “the child” inside and becomes “the adult.” I realized it seemed that Mira had been somewhat sheltered and this was her breaking out of that shell.
At its heart, In Between Days is a story of what it means to be a family going through grief. Mira’s world has been upended by the shocking loss of her father, whom she had a so-so relationship with. She wanted more from her father than he was willing to give and now she knows that that relationship can never be mended. She is also recognizing how the secret behind her parent’s divorce shaped her relationship with both parents and due to meeting Richard, realizes that the key to understanding why her relationship with her father was the strained was due to the secrets her parents kept. She also feels, and in my opinion rightfully so, that learning those secrets will help her heal and come to terms with her father’s death and their lost relationship. I fully rooted for her for going behind her mother’s back because her mother treated her as if she were a young child rather than a teenager who is capable of understanding complex issues and situations. As Mira grew in her relationship with Richard, and hence understanding her father, she grew. She started the process of healing and truly dealing with her grief.
The writing in the novel, it is told through journal entries, even started to change as Mira started to grow in confidence and she started to “read” like a teenager rather than a child. And that shows Garrett’s strengths as a writer as she was able to visually, in a way, show how Mira’s breakthrough to adulthood. When I realized what Garrett was doing, I was fully into the book and it also became an intriguing read. In Between Days is a lovely and moving story about family, loss, and how we all grow because of it.