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book review

Toronto author Hadley Dyer's writing is like the conversations I would have with my older cousins when I was a teenager – empathetic, comforting and wise. While Dyer has been active in Canadian children's publishing in many capacities, most notably as an editor, it's been more than a decade since her last work of fiction. Here So Far Away is a story about forbidden love between a high school senior and a new older man in town, but there is nothing salacious or unbelievable here.

It's poetic realism at its finest, with the romance folded into a bigger, subtler theme of putting up blinders to future pain for the sake of enjoying something oh-so-tremendous in the present (which also happens to be the definition of adolescence). There's heartbreak and loss, including a much-needed acknowledgment of the real struggles of acid reflux, but you'll feel pleasantly wrung out and better off for experiencing it.

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