"What Happened to Lani Garver"

I have never read a book that made me really emotional or made me change drastically in the few minutes after I was done reading it. The book I just read is called "What happened to Lani Garver" (hence the name of this post) It's one of those books that you will remember for the rest of your life. In this book there are a couple of pretty big teen conflicts going on. For example: Peer-pressure, homosexuality, eating disorders, divorce, cancer, AIDS, Bullying and stereotyping (or 'boxes' as Lani Garver called them). I'm not sure why, but reading this book was very psychologically demanding for me. Not in a bad way, it was just something different and unexpected.

The book deals with some horrible things arising from homophobia. The violence from these acts helps Claire find out who her friends really are, and how crazy the world is. Claire feels like she is an outsider because she missed more than a year because of her cancer, but when she meets Lani, everything changes. She realizes what a real friendship should be like.

Both Claire and her 'best friend' Macey see a new student at school one day.

They think that its strange because they don't know if the student is a girl or a boy.

That's because the kid had a feminine face that was hidden behind long hair, however, the student had no physhical attributes that would have made it obvious what gender 'it' was.

When Macey asks if the person is a girl, the teen giggles and says no. The main character, Claire just assumes that the kid is a boy, although her never stated if he was or not. However he did say his name was pronounced 'Law-nee' instead of 'Lay-nee'. Which made "him" seem more masculine.

Later in the story you find out about the tremendous problems that Claire and Lani have. Claire suffers from EDO (eating disorders), possesive friends, and dreams where she is obsessed with razor blades.

The main problem Lani has is that everone on the small island (and everywhere he has moved or run away to) thinks that he's homosexual because it's hard to tell what gender he is.

Throughout the book, you are never told that he is homosexual. He just seems a little feminine, but he also seems almost fatherly to Claire, he seems too smart, too sensible.

Lani never tells Claire, or anyone how old he is, or his true gender.

In the middle of the book someone mentions something called a floating angel.

A floating angel is an angel that is neither a girl or a boy, it is something intensely good
and nice to everyone. They come into people's lives at critical moments. But they can never tell anyone what they are. Because everyone would be nice to an angel if they knew for sure if the person was one...right?

Claire throughout the novel, finds out things about herself and about Lani that suprise her.

She finds out who she is.

However, there is a tragic end that challenges Claire to face the new world she has found.

I think everyone should read this book, it really opened my eyes to a lot of things.

I'm not exactly sure why I was so emotional after reading it, but it's now one of my favorites.

My favorite part of the book?

"People probably think It's strange that they can stare at me, and I smile and wave, and pick up dropped books for people in the hall, and visit kids with cancer when I have time. I wish someone would ask me why I'm like that. I would love to say, 'You're supposed to be kind to everyone, because you never know when you're meeting an angel.' I could say that much and know I was speaking the truth."



"What Happened to Lani Garver"

Written by: Carol Plum-Ucci