Gwen, I Am Your Father

 An Otherwise Perfect Plan by Ken Schafer

Gwen Pendergrass has never met her father.  Her mother will not tell her much.  But when events in her life convince her to search for him, Gwen is determined.  With only a photo booth photo strip she sets out on an adventure to find her father.  

A coming-of-age story about a child looking for the father they never knew may not sound like the most original idea.  But there are enough unexpected incidents, so it does not feel like it has all been done before.  Some of those incidents are improbable, but not so outrageous that you can't believe them if you try.  It was not uninteresting to see all of Gwen's well-intentioned plans come to ruin and sometimes she was witty, but I had trouble connecting to this story.  My main problem is that I found Gwen annoying.  With all of her stream of consciousness and constant babbling and going off on long tangents that had nothing to do with the story I had trouble paying attention to her.  By the end, I will admit, I was interested and wanted to know how it would all work out.  But that didn't happen until I was three quarters of the way though the book.  I'm sure some people can relate to Gwen, some people will find her endearing.  Unfortunately, I am not one of those people.  

I got a free copy of this book from Librarything.com, Early Reviewers.