The Sweet In-Between

by: Sheri Reynolds

Published by: Shaye Areheart Books

Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart
Seventeen-year-old Kendra “Kenny” Lugo is the protagonist in Sheri Reynolds’ _The Sweet In-Between. Her mother died from cancer when she was a kid, and father is doing time for selling and taking drugs. Kenny lives with “Aunt Glo,” a former (before Mom) and current lover of her father’s, Aunt Glo’s two sons and granddaughter, seven-year-old Daphne.

Kenny’s problem is much larger than her living situation. She is petrified of what will happen to her when she turns eighteen. Will Aunt Glo kick her out? Will she be able to finish high school (she got a year behind)?

Her other, much more serious, problem is her gender identity. She knows she’s a girl but dresses, including binding her voluptuous breasts, and acts like a boy. She much happier taking shop than home economics.

When the man who lives in the other side of the duplex accidentally shoots and kills a young woman, Kenny obsesses about the woman’s life and why she had to die. The young woman, Clara, becomes a fixture in Kenny’s life, even when she thinks she’s past it. And as Kenny obsesses about Clara, she obsesses about what will ultimately happen to her–and if her life matters at all.

Kenny does everything she can to be helpful to Aunt Glo so she won’t be let go on her next birthday. Kenny makes contingency plans by cleaning out the barn-like workshop and fixing it up to she would have a place to live.

Kenny is a man trapped in a woman’s body. She enjoys guy things, like laying linoleum. She doesn’t appear to be attracted to other women, but it’s hard to determine. Reynolds does a good job in keeping the focus of the story on Kenny, but in the end, The Sweet In-Between has no umph.

Armchair Interviews says: Unique storyline about a young woman in flux.

Author’s Web site: http://www.SheriReynolds.com