Wish You Were Here by Catherine Clark

From the Publisher

The next morning we meet at the world headquarters of Leisure-Lee Tours.

Which is a sentence I never thought I'd write.

Ariel Flack never thought she'd write a postcard saying "Wish you were here," especially to Dylan, the boy she's had a crush on forever and is finally (sort of) dating. She also didn't know she'd be sending that postcard from the family vacation from hell--a two-week geriatric bus tour with her crazy mom, annoying sister, embarrassing uncle, and frighteningly energetic grandparents.

As South Dakota rolls by at five miles an hour, Ariel begins to learn that sometimes life is just too complicated to fit on a postcard. Sometimes your parents let you down (and sometimes they don't). Sometimes you meet an unexpected fellow traveler. And sometimes you just have to go where the road takes you--even if the tour bus won't.

Children's Literature

Ariel is a sixteen year old who hates her pesky younger sister Zena, her father, and road trips. To further complicate things, her parents have separated because of her father's embezzling scandal and gambling addiction. With her college fund depleted and her reputation ruined, she finds little in her life that makes her happy (Skittles, running, and her semi-boyfriend Dylan), but even that is upended when her mother announces a surprise summer vacation to get away from it all. An electronics-free summer on a bus with her extended family is the last thing Ariel wants. However, on her travels, Ariel discovers an unexpected friend, the difference between running away from your problems and moving on with life, and that her family is not as horrible as she thinks. Interspersed with amusing postcards to Dylan, her best friend, and her cat, Ariel's story is an entertaining tale of a broken family and their journey towards understanding, forgiveness, and healing. In what could be an overdone and predictable book, Clark succeeds in creating a convincing teen voice and a witty story line. Reviewer: Melissa Joy Adams

School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up- Spending two weeks touring middle America with her family and a busload of senior citizens is not 16-year-old Ariel's idea of a fun summer vacation. As if this weren't punishment enough, her mother has implemented mandatory quality time, which means no cell phones, email, or iPods. Luckily, Ariel can periodically escape by writing postcards to her boyfriend, Dylan, who is at camp and by talking to Andre, an attractive fellow traveler. Dylan misspells her name and says that "whatever happens on the road stays on the road," two big clues that he's not worth the trouble. Through the course of the trip, it becomes clear that Ariel's boyfriend woes pale in comparison to the breakdown of her family. Her parent's marriage has been torn apart by her father's gambling addiction, which has also bankrupted them. Ariel's mother uses the bus trip to buffer the news that she wants a fresh start with her children in a new town. Typical reactions of disbelief and anger follow. Through her wallowing, Ariel begins to see that avoiding problems is not the answer, despite the allure of running away with Andre. The overriding message is clear: life takes you to unexpected places, and sometimes what's best for you isn't the easiest road to travel. Humorous postcards interspersed throughout cleverly hint at Ariel's emotional growth, yet shallow characters and a slightly forced plot keep this book from being anything more than superfluous chick-lit.-Erin Schirota, Bronxville Public Library, NY

Kirkus Reviews

After the worst year of Ariel's life, in which her father's gambling compulsion costs Ariel both her college fund and her social standing at school, the last thing she wants to do is go on a road trip with her inescapably nerdy mother, her way-too-mature-for-13 sister and her mother's relatives. Despite her protests, Ariel finds herself on a Leisure-Lee bus tour of America's Heartland, where the only viable company is a boy her age who wants to be on the bus almost as little as she does. The bus tour takes her from diners to the world's third-largest ball of yarn to the Mitchell, S.D., Corn Palace. While Ariel doesn't bond with her mother and sister the way her mother wants her to, she finds an unexpected ally and running buddy in her grandfather. Throughout the trip, Ariel chronicles her adventure in witty, irreverent postcards to everyone from her cat to Mars, Incorporated. On the road, Ariel finds the courage and support that will finally allow her to confront her father about his harmful addiction. This lighthearted journey of self-discovery accompanied by a romance that can only be found by two people looking to make the best of a bad situation will entice fans of humor and chick-lit. (Fiction. YA)

Product Details

• ISBN: 0060559837
  
• ISBN-13: 9780060559830
• Format: Hardcover, 224pp
• Publisher: Harpercollins Childrens Books
• Pub. Date: March 2008
• Sales Rank: 84,277
• Age Range: Young Adult

• Read an Excerpt

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

I'm on my bike, bringing my semi-new, semi-boyfriend, Dylan, a bag of Skittles, and the candies are rattling in my backpack like those little fake rocks my mother has in her miniature Zen serenity desk fountain.

I picture getting to Dylan's house and spelling out his name, or my name, with the Skittles, or encircling our initials in a heart shape with a giant + in the middle. Then we'll frolic on his bedroom floor in the Skittles as part of our long, romantic good-bye.

I have a very active fantasy life. Dylan's not the frolic-in-Skittles type of person, and probably neither am I.

I am, however, addicted to eating Skittles, so I can't really see why I'm giving away an entire bag. Maybe it's because now I'm addicted to Dylan instead, or maybe it's because I had six bags stashed in my desk drawer, so it was very handy and didn't require another trip to Target, where I've already been five times in the last two days getting stuff for our summer trip.

"Ariel, this isn't the only Target in the world," my mother keeps saying. "You realize there will be stores where we're going." But I don't trust her, because she won't even tell us where it is we're going. And besides, what does she know about being addicted to Skittles?

When I get to his house, Dylan opens the front door. He has sandy cinnamon-colored hair that's cut short, and he has sideburns that make him look older than seventeen.

His face lights up when he sees me, like it always used to when I walked into Spanish when we were in the ninth grade, back when we were friends, before we were whatever we are now. Hislight blue eyes have brown flecks, which makes them hard not to gaze into. I've tried. Like, all through ninth grade I tried. I worry that he's only smiling because he sees me holding the Skittles, so I hand the bag to him, but he doesn't seem overly excited by them, and he keeps looking happy to see me. Which is sweet. Like Skittles-candy-sweet. Addictive, for sure. "Hey, you," he says. "What's up?"

"Not much. Just packing. For the tenth time."

"Right. Me too," he says. "You want to come in? Come on in." He opens the door wide. When I walk past him, he does this cute little thing where he pinches my waist, only I don't have much waist, so he pinches hip bone instead. I still can't believe he actually does things like this to me.

I'm not saying that I'm an ultra-thin girl. I just don't seem to keep much weight on these days. I think partly it's because I'm a runner, and because my parents just had this ugly breakup, and because my mother plans to drag me all over the country this summer, and I'm worried how that's going to turn out. I mean, there are the normal worries, on that front, and then there are the new worries: like, what if Dylan has this amazingly exciting summer in Wyoming and meets someone new and falls in love with her? While I'm stuck on a road trip with my mom and sister? And did I mention that after our road trip, we're spending two weeks at my grandparents' house?

Of course, I could be home all summer, pathetically waiting for Dylan's return, which would not be any better, let's face it. If he's going to be gone for two months, then I might as well ditch too. I just wish we weren't going to be so far apart, for so long.

I'm barely over the shock of the fact that we hooked up at our school's Spring Fling. There I was, with two weeks left of school, just getting over the thrill of our track team coming in second in state, me coming in third in the 1600. (It was exciting, at least at the time, because nobody thought I was going to place that high, not even me.) Sarah and I were hanging out, wondering if there was much flinging to be done, really, when she left to talk to her physics teacher and I ran into Dylan, who throws the javelin. So we started talking about track, then about other stuff too, laughing and dancing.

We kept looking at each other and then we started holding hands. We even left the dance together, which was huge, and he was going to drive me home, because we live close to each other, but I had to go back inside because of course I forgot my cute little gold shoulder wrap thingie, and when I left again, there was Dylan, right where I left him, and I thought, What is happening? Is he actually waiting for me? No one ever waits for me.

I'm with Perfect Dylan now. It's the best thing that's happened to me during what has been a very imperfect year.

Now, two weeks later, it's the beginning of summer and he's leaving and I'm leaving and that is all so imperfect that I would promise to give up Skittles if it would change anything. But it won't, so what's the point in suffering? You don't go on hunger strikes, or Skittles strikes, for just anything.

We walk into Dylan's room and I flop onto his Green Bay Packers beanbag chair by the door, which nearly swallows me. I struggle to sit up.

"You know what?" I say. "I need your address at camp."

"I already gave it to you," Dylan says.

"I know, but I lost it," I say. Actually I didn't. In fact I have it, and I've also already memorized it. Probably it's a bad sign to be lying this early in our relationship.

"Oh. Well, okay," Dylan says, and he writes down the address again on a scrap of paper that turns out to be a receipt from the Hollister store at the mall, which I will cherish even though it's all inventory numbers except for the words "s/s tee." I just want more of his handwriting, more things to remind me that he exists when the tires are rolling down the pavement and I'm staring at the back of my little sister's head, because of course she'll insist on sitting up front at least some of the time.