CarolAnneShaw
Seventeen-year-old Stephanie Sparrow has always been the one holding her family together. Ever since her dad disappeared when she was nine, she's been her depressed mom's emotional caretaker, quietly keeping things afloat while her older sister Lennox lives with their father and stays mostly out of reach.
When another move lands Stephanie in the city, she decides to try something different. At her new school, she becomes "Stevie"-a slightly braver, more honest version of herself.
For the first time, she starts to breathe. She makes real friends in Lou, a bold photographer and bird nerd, and Leo, a soft-spoken musician, and finds her voice through writing and the school lit mag. Life finally feels like it might be hers.
But at home, her mom still needs everything from her. And when Stevie gets accepted into a summer writing program, that need turns into guilt, pressure, and emotional fallout. With her sister's support, Stevie makes a choice she's never made before: she goes anyway.
In the end, Stevie has to choose between saving people who don't want to be saved-or saving herself.
The Saving of Stevie Sparrow is a YA coming-of-age story about family, emotional parentification, setting boundaries, and finding yourself when you've spent your whole life being everything for everyone else.