Everlasting Nora

by Marie Miranda Cruz

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

Nora Everlasting is one of those special books that will make you think, make you laugh, make you cry. It is narrated by Nora, a young girl in the Philippines whose family is impoverished after her home goes up in flames and her father tines in the fire. She and her mother go to live in a mausoleum in the cemetery–something she had no idea poor people did until she and her mother had to do it, too. The plot of the story revolved around the “mystery” of her mother going missing from their grave house one day, but the heart of the story is about Nora navigating coming to terms with her poverty, whether she can trust her old friends or make new ones, and dealing with her mother’s gambling addiction and the hope that one day things will be better.

The plot of Nora’s search for her missing mother gives the book structure and adds some excitement, even some humor, to a book that might otherwise seem overly dark (even considering the fact that having your mother disappear while you’re living alone in a cemetery is pretty dark in the first place). However, in some ways the quest structure and the minor hijinks that ensue are fairly typical middle grade fare. It’s really Nora’s personality, her struggles, and her growth that put their stamp on the plot and make the book engaging.

Throughout the novel, Nora learns a lot about herself and about the world around her. Her standard of living before the fire seemed to have been comfortable, though it seems everyone in the book is a bit hard up for cash, and so entering poverty forces her to take a good look at her surroundings. It gives a her a new perspective on things like privileged she was to have been able to attend school. However, it also forces her to reevaluate the people around her, to realize her old friends might not judge her for being poor and to realize that the people who live around her in the other grave houses are people with dignity, too. She learns to appreciate the simple things in life and that hope must be combined with hard work.

The one thing the book left unexplored is Nora’s mother’s gambling addiction and how realistic it might be for her to actually overcome that. The book isn’t shy about delving into the pain and trouble this addiction causes, but it does seem to take the overly optimistic tack that the simple willingness to stop gambling will immediately solve all problems. To be fair, the book ends before readers can see how this really plays out, and ending on a note of hope is great, especially for middle grade. It also makes sense that a child’s POV would be “If my parent really cared, they’d stop gambling” and sort of expect it to be that easy. So maybe exploring the real difficulties of beating an addition, even once you’ve put your mind up to it, is just a topic for a different book.

Everlasting Nora is a quick read, but it’s compelling and stands out from a lot of the middle grade crowd.