Stevie‘s review of Live, Laugh, Kidnap by Gabby Noone
Contemporary Young Adult Fiction published by Razorbill 29 Mar 22
Being a teenager sucks at times. That feeling that nothing is completely within your control, even when the adults around you are behaving irresponsibly, erratically, or just being plain mysterious for no good reason. Of course, all that feels so much worse when you’re also stuck in a dead-end town in the middle of nowhere with no obvious route to civilisation, as is the case for our three protagonists: Holly, Genesis, and Zoe.
Holly has been struggling to keep up – socially and academically – with the rich girls at the prestigious private school to which she won a scholarship. When she is caught stealing (in an attempt to solve at least one of those problems), her mother and stepfather send her away for the summer to stay in Violet, the Montana town where she was born and where her father still lives, running the diner he inherited from his uncle. Desperate to salvage something from the mess, Holly tells her friends she’s going to Iceland, which sounds far more cool, but gets cut out of their lives regardless. Arriving in Violet, Holly is initially reluctant to make friends with any of the locals, but soon finds herself drawn into the lives of two girls whom she meets in the diner.
Zoe works as a waitress for Holly’s father, using the money she makes to help her impoverished family while her mother spends unheedingly on multilevel marketing schemes that never come to anything, and her brother hoards banned energy drinks in the hope of one day selling them to collectors. She dreams of the day she will come into the money left in trust for her, believing it will be enough for her to leave Violet with her girlfriend and for them to start over in a bigger, more tolerant, town. When Zoe discovers that her inheritance has already been spent – by her mother, the main trustee – she teams up with Holly and a third girl to get the money back from the church leaders she believes to be responsible for her mother’s worst spending mistakes.
Genesis meets Holly and Zoe when delivering pies to the diner with the boy she has a crush on – although he may also be her brother, since they both grew up in the same group of former doomsday cultists, who are now eking out a living as organic farmers, and no one is entirely sure how all those born on the farm are related to each other. Her understanding of the world beyond the farm comes mostly from reading social media on phones she borrows or finds, and she is particularly fascinated by the wife of the mega-church’s pastor, who seems more glamorous than anyone living on the farm, and whose children all seem far more loved than Genesis, whose own mother pays more attention to the running of the farm than to her daughter.
Once Holly realises that a boy she keeps giving lifts to in her borrowed car is one of the children of the church leaders, the three girls hatch a plan to fake his kidnapping and recover Zoe’s lost inheritance. Nothing quite runs to plan, however, and the group find themselves falling ever deeper into a series of unlikely escapades.
I liked this book. The characters were relatable, even though the chaos they managed to cause wasn’t always believable. There were some great comedy moments, but also a few points where I could see exactly how their plans were fated to go wrong yet again. I’d like to see more from the author.
Grade: B
Summary:
The only thing Genesis, Holly and Zoe seem to have in common is being stuck in Violet, Montana. Well, that and the fact that Hope Harvest Ministries is trying to ruin their lives.
Genesis lives on a commune that is now an echo of the New Age cult it once was. She’s witnessed power couple Pastor Jay and Ree Reaps transform their sleepy small town into a haven for online Influencers, who flock to Violet, Bible in one hand and Ree’s bestselling ACT LIKE A LADY, PRAY LIKE A BOSS in the other. Now, the Reaps have decided it’s God’s Will™ that they take over Gen’s ranch.
Holly is a begrudging tourist, forced to spend the summer with her estranged father as punishment for her unsavory behavior back in LA. To Holly, Hope Harvest is nothing but a gimmicky marketing ploy, but it’s threatening to put her father’s diner out of business and, for some reason, Holly cares.
All Zoe wants is to leave Violet, working thankless shifts at the diner to scrape together enough cash to start a new life with her girlfriend. But Zoe’s mother has lost everything to the church’s multilevel marketing schemes so the little money that Zoe manages to make goes right to debt collectors.
The only solution to their problems is to scam the scammers and protect what’s theirs. It shouldn’t take much – the Reaps’ golden son, an accidental kidnapping, some light blackmail – and the Reaps’ fortune will be in the girls’ much more deserving hands. As long as everything goes according to plan…
Read an excerpt.
