How to Build a House

Publishers Weekly

Reinhardt artfully parallels the construction of a house with the reconstruction of a broken family in a work as intimate and intelligently wrought as her previous YA novels, A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life and Harmless. Shaken by the recent divorce of her father and stepmother and her separation from stepsister and best friend, Tess, Harper Evans jumps at the chance to participate in a summer program in a small Tennessee town, where she and other high school students will build a new house for a family whose home was destroyed by a tornado. Harper aims to bury herself in physical labor to forget about problems back in L.A., but gets sidetracked when she falls in love with Teddy, one of the house's intended residents. Weaving flashbacks of Harper's home life before and after the divorce into the romance between Harper and Teddy, Reinhardt builds a story within a story: one exploring reasons the heroine feels betrayed, the other focusing on how she learns to trust again. This meticulously crafted book illustrates how both homes and relationships can be resurrected through hard work, hope and teamwork. Ages 12-up. (May)

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KLIATT - Claire Rosser

Harper's family is in a shambles. Her stepmother, the only mother Harper has known, is moving out and creating a new home for her children (the only siblings Harper has known), leaving Harper to cope with her depressed father. It only makes sense to leave this mess behind for a summer with an opportunity to build a home for a family in a small town in Tennessee, a family who lost their home in a storm. (This is like a Habitat for Humanity project.) The team of builders—older adolescents living in a simple motel for the summer—learn a lot about difficult physical work and about being away from their own families as they create a new sort of family among themselves. The family whose home they are rebuilding is quite remarkable. Their adolescent son, Teddy, connects with Harper, teaching her new lessons about love and family life, as he shares his family with her and as their romance grows. This is fine reading for older adolescents but perhaps a bit problematic for some younger YAs because of the sexual situations, totally believable in a story about older teenagers and college students. Reinhardt handles the family dynamics brilliantly, and Harper's feelings and experiences are well described and will be most appealing to YA readers. Reviewer: Claire Rosser

VOYA - Leslie Wolfson

Harper, an environmentally and socially conscious sixteen-year-old, decides to spend her summer with a group of teens from around the country to build a house for a family who has lost theirs in a tornado. Although Harper wants to help others, she is also running away from her problems, struggling with the disintegration of her family, and questioning her sexual relationship with a boy back home. Housed in a run-down hotel, Harper quickly makes friends while learning to handle hammers and power tools. She becomes particularly close with Teddy and his family, for whom they are building the house. Harper learns to appreciate the quietness and peaceful atmosphere of a small town in rural Tennessee, which has a calming effect on her tumultuous life back in Los Angeles. Harper's voice is as engaging as the story. Although Reinhart presents an unlikely plot for a teen novel, it works. The characters and their dialogue are mostly authentic, despite the fact that the teens throw around hundred-dollar words, such as "paradox," "counterintuitive," and "preternatural." The novel's first-person narrative, some of it in flashbacks, switches back and forth between "Home" and "Here." The building of the house is a metaphor for Haley's attempt to rebuild broken relationships and regain purpose during the course of the summer. As the house begins to take shape, Harper's personal life becomes a little less broken. Reviewer: Leslie Wolfson

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up- Seventeen-year-old Harper Evans is spending her summer with Homes from the Heart, a teen volunteer organization that is rebuilding a home in Bailey, TN, after the town is hit by a major tornado. Harper, an LA resident, has never built anything, but she wants to help, and she also wants to get away from the havoc in her own life. Her father and stepmother are getting divorced, her sometime-boyfriend Gabriel, with whom she is sexually active, is indifferent, and her beloved stepsister, Tess, is increasingly distant and seemingly hostile toward her. As Harper says, "I know a thing or two about people whose homes have been destroyed. Their lives uprooted. Everything gone." As the summer progresses, Harper becomes increasingly confident as she learns how to handle power tools and flash a doorsill. She also begins to rebuild her own life as she forms new friendships with her fellow volunteers, begins a romantic relationship with the son of the family for whom the house is being built, and eventually moves toward a reconciliation with Tess. This is a thoughtful treatment of what it means to rebuild, not just physical structures, but also lives and families, and the novel emphasizes values such as compassion for others and forgiveness without becoming preachy. Harper is a sympathetic, believable character whose narrative voice expresses wit and heartbreak, and her emotional journey will have tremendous appeal for mature teen readers.-Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ

Kirkus Reviews

Sixteen-year-old Harper lost her mother when she was two years old. Her father subsequently married Jane, a lawyer with two daughters, Rose and Tess, who became Harper's best friends. But because of her father's infidelity, Jane has left, and Harper's ideal home has been torn apart. The novel begins with Harper aboard a flight from her home in California to Bailey, Tenn., where she has joined a volunteer project to rebuild a house destroyed by a tornado. Scenes from the past alternate with Harper's present-tense account of her summer to provide background for her emotional travails. There: stepsister Tess seethes at her stepfather's betrayal; here: construction partner Teddy becomes increasingly attractive as more than a building buddy. The author juxtaposes the metaphorical (Harper learns to rebuild her own "house") with the concrete in a well-paced first-person narrative spiced with summer flings and teen romance. Readers will find Harper absolutely charming, even at her most sardonic moments. (Fiction. 13 & up)