The Smell of Other People's Houses

Hitchcock, B. (2016). The Smell of Other People's Houses. New York, NY: Wendy Lamb Books.

The Smell of Other People’s Houses  tells about the lives of several teens in Alaska and how their lives become intertwined with one another.  Ruth is a girl whose life is turned upside down at the age of five when her father dies in a plane crash.  Her mother goes into early labor when she hears the news, has the baby, who she names Lily, but then has a nervous breakdown and can no longer take care of her children.  Ruth and Lily are sent to live with their grandmother in Fairbanks in a poor neighborhood named Birch Park.  Their grandmother is unloving and Ruth feels like she no longer has a home. Ruth becomes pregnant by her boyfriend at 16 years old,  and her grandmother sends her to a convent in Canada.   Dora is also 16 and lives in Birch Park as well with her alcoholic parents.  Her father is abusive and her mother just doesn’t care about her.  Her father is sent to jail for firing his gun in the local bar.   Her neighbors, who have two girls named Dumpling and Bunny, take her in.  Dora wins the Ice Classic, where she guesses when the ice will melt in the spring, and now has become something of a celebrity in Fairbanks, but Dumpling’s father protects her from reporters that want to interview her.  Alyce is a ballerina that wants nothing more than to dance in college, but she feels obligated to work the fishing boat with her father in Sitka, Alaska.  The dance tryout is in the summer, at the same time she will be out on the boat.  Summer is the only time she sees her father, so she is torn between dancing or spending time on the fishing boat with her father.  Hank, Sam, and Jack live in Sitka.  Their father has died in a boating accident and their mother's new boyfriend is awful.  Hank, the oldest brother, has decided it's better for him and his two younger brothers to run away then to stay at home.  They stowaway on a ferry heading south.  Sam falls overboard while looking for orcas one day and is rescued by Alyce, who saw him fall overboard from her father's boat.  Hank and Jack have no idea what happened to Sam, and aren't sure wither he is alive or dead.   Alyce and her dad allow Sam to stay on the fishing boat and teach him about life on a fishing boat.  Alyce soon discovers that she has feelings for Sam.  Sam knows he has to find his two brothers and Alyce's dad begins to ask other fisherman if they have heard of a missing boy from the ferry.  Eventually, they learn that Hank and Jack are in children's protective custody and are heading towards Fairbanks where a family has agreed to take in the two boys.  On the way, they stop at a store and Hank meets Ruth, who is also at the store.  He becomes interested in her.  In the meantime,  Sam learns where his brothers are heading and Alyce and him fly back to Fairbanks together.  Alyce is also going to get the chance to audition for a dance spot.  At the audition, Sam reunites with his brothers, Hank sees Ruth again, who has returned after having the baby and giving it up for adoption, and Dora gets to permanently live with Dumpling's loving family.  Ruth's grandmother and her also decide to start with a clean slate.  

  Hitchcock combines her knowledge of life in  Alaska along with it's native people and the struggle teens face growing up.  She writes about the struggles of teen pregnancy, lose of parents, abuse, and feeling like an outcast.  These teens all face some type of adversity, but learn to cope and survive, as well as come out stronger then they thought they would.  Not only can teen readers read vicariously through this book, but can also read for an aesthetic experience with the wonderful description in the book.  They can also learn how tough times can make you grow stronger as a person.  

The Smell of Other People's Houses is the debut novel of Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock and became a 2017 William C. Morris Award Finalist.