Dear Rachel Maddow by Adrienne Kisner

A few years ago our family "cut the cord". We had been paying way too much for satellite television and we wanted to make a change so we decided to go with Netflix and Amazon. We have been so happy with our decision, but the only two things I miss are football and the news. I tried to watch a variety of local and cable news shows and one of my favorites was Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. When I came across Adrienne Kisner's novel Dear Rachel Maddow, I was quite intrigued. A young woman named Brynn is a junior in high school struggling with a learning disability, the death of her older brother, and a difficult family life. When she writes an email to her favorite cable news host, Rachel Maddow, for a class assignment she discovers an excellent outlet for all she is feeling but can't say out loud. Of course, she doesn't actually send all these emails- that would be crazy. She writes them and then just leaves them in her drafts folder. Brynn tells Rachel all about her awful breakup with her first girlfriend, the terrible way her mother and step-father treat her expecting that she will follow the same fatal path her older brother took, and about Adam, the most obnoxious, evil boy at school who is determined to make Brynn's life as horrible as possible.

Brynn really does have it tough. It broke my heart to read the way her mother and step-father treated her, especially considering the recent death of her brother. How a mother can choose someone, anyone, over her own child is so far beyond my imagination. There are redeeming adults in Brynn's life- two of her brother's old friends, her teacher, her principal- that make it better, but I couldn't help but think there must have been more they could have done to help her.

Touching and emotional, this book was well-written and compelling. Lines like this one were so satisfying to read:

September 26 always sneaks up on me and jumps me in the bathroom.

Warning for those who don't enjoy reading foul language: this book has lots of it. She is an extremely frustrated teenage girl so it is fitting, but it is also abundant. And sometimes it totally works:

I'm going to grab agency by the nads and use that motherf---er to try to enact change.

I really liked this book, but I also wanted more. I feel like it ended to quickly and before the story was fully resolved. We can't know everything, but I wish I had known more. What else do I wish I knew? How did the real Rachel Maddow react to this book? I've looked for the answer to that question, but I can't find it anywhere. I hope she's read it and likes it, too.