Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Grace

Fourteen-year-old Tracy is forced to spend her summer with her divorced dad at Farnsworth House, also known as the Hippie Hotel, because the woman who runs it, Sharon, looks like such a hippie. There are also two other families there for "Together Time", where divorced parents spend time with their kids on "excursions" to bond. Beka, the daughter of divorced parent Loraine, is a dark punk girl who Tracy finds it hard to be friends with. Beka breaks all the rules, and is very good at flirting with Sharon's son, Paul, as Tracy has noticed. But when the second family arrives, Tracy becomes friends with Kelsey, who is a "golden Californian girl" who is also great at flirting and not afraid to express her feelings. Together, they meet two boys, Dave and Kevin, and Tracy's summer gets more interesting as she tries to keep from boring Kevin and to make him like her, the most ordinary girl there is.

My Not-So-Terrible Time at the Hippie Hotel is a touching book about coping with having to live with divorced parents. Tracy also experiences with liking and flirting with a boy for the first time. Readers will feel close to Tracy and cheer for her.