Tatum doesn’t like change, but everything around her seems to be changing anyway. Her parents are separated and talking about divorce, her best friend lost weight and is reveling in newfound attention from boys, and a new kid in band wants to move into her position as third clarinet. She wants things back the way they were before eighth grade started, but since that’s not happening, Tatum has to figure out how to adjust or be left behind while everyone else moves on.

Audition and Subtraction by Amy Fellner Dominy (OyMG) delves into issues that pre-teens and teens are sure to face: What do you do when a friend starts to treat you differently because she’s dating someone? Can you overcome insecurities to excel on your own? How do you respond when a friend asks you to fail so someone else can succeed? What happens when a friend of the opposite sex shows interest in becoming more than a friend?

These are all tough issues that are often difficult to navigate and they should provide lots of conversation possibilities for mother-daughter book clubs with girls aged 10 to 14. As with her previous book OyMG, Dominy does a great job of capturing the conflicting feelings that tweens and young teens experience. Her characters see that often we both like and dislike things about the people we know, and they struggle to be true to themselves when they encounter conflict. Audition and Subtraction is another Dominy book I can highly recommend.

The author provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.