Young Widows Club

Gr 10 Up—Tamsen Baird becomes a widow at the age of 17 when her husband, 19-year-old Noah, dies in the middle of the night. Marrying Noah and taking a break from high school to manage his band and live in the house his parents were building for them were the best decisions Tam had made, or so she thought. Noah's death puts Tam's world into a tailspin. After a trespassing incident with a band member, she spends the night in jail and is sentenced to return to high school, move back in with her father and stepmother, and attend a support group for widows. While in the support group, Tam meets Colin, 26, a lawyer who lost his wife to cancer. Over time, Tam and Colin connect, each feeling emotions that they thought they were ready to accept. Noah's family remains in Tam's life but at a distance, with his father, Mitch, working on finishing their house and his mother, Molly, battling intense grief and depression. Coutts examines underage drinking, lying to authority figures, complicated relationships that evolve as a result of grief, and other mature topics in this exploratory novel about a teen widow. Not only does she demonstrate realistic consequences for illegal actions, but she focuses on the relationships that suffered and were rekindled as a result of Noah's death. This intense and emotionally charged novel adeptly examines the five stages of grief and how one teen handles marriage, death, and rebirth.