Maggie Come Lately by Michelle Buckman covers a more serious subject matter than the usual chick lit/YA that I choose. It’s a coming-of-age story of a girl who is searching for her place in the world. It’s dark at times and yet there is a ribbon of faith that runs through the book and helps to put her struggle in perspective. It’s a story of hurt and betrayal, but also one of redemption.

Maggie has struggled for years to make sense of her mother’s suicide. She resents the fact that she has had to make up for her mom’s absence – doing the cooking, cleaning and other “motherly” tasks. She wonders what it’s like to be a normal teenager.

Then her sixteenth birthday arrives. Maggie’s birthday wish is that sixteen will be a great year – that she’s be pretty and popular and that her brother’s best friend (whom she’s had a crush on forever) will notice her.

Her birthday ushers in a whole new period in her life, but it’s not quite what she expected. Her father gives her a family heirloom as a gift (just the fact that he remembered her birthday is a miracle) and announces that it’s time for her to meet the ‘special someone’ in her life. Then she makes a discovery that will change the course of her life forever.