Small Damages

by Beth Kephart

Read: September 13-14, 2012

Published: July 19th 2012 by Philomel

Source: Library book

Category: YA - Contemporary

It’s senior year, and while Kenzie should be looking forward to prom and starting college in the fall, she is mourning the loss of her father. She finds solace in the one person she trusts, her boyfriend, and she soon finds herself pregnant. Kenzie’s boyfriend and mother do not understand her determination to keep the baby. She is sent to southern Spain for the summer, where she will live out her pregnancy as a cook’s assistant on a bull ranch, and her baby will be adopted by a Spanish couple. 

Alone and resentful in a foreign country, Kenzie is at first sullen and difficult. She begins to open her eyes and her heart to the beauty that is all around her and inside of her.

Small Damages was another perfect recommendation from my friend Heather @ The Flyleaf Review. In homage to her fabulous reviews, I wanted to share the first sentence of the book with you.

The streets of Seville are the size of sidewalks, and there are alleys leaking off from the streets.

When I read that sentence, my heart started racing, I got chills, and I KNEW I was going to love this book because of the writing alone. I was not disappointed. The descriptive language in Small Damages is gorgeous. I could feel the heat and the dust of the country, see the crowds of Seville and hear the gypsy music play. The way Kenzie describes her surroundings also mirrors her mood throughout the book. It is desolate and depressing at first, and then gradually the beauty of the landscape comes out as Kenzie's mindset changes. 

"You aren't happy," Estella says.   

"I can't be happy," I say.  

"Look at me, Kenzie." 

"I'm looking at you, Estela."  

"Do you know your own heart?" 

"I don't know anything."

Small Damages is another one of those quiet books that looks inside someone. It's the story about the choices we make and about knowing our hearts. It is Kenzie's journey to figure out what is important to her. What really matters. And to be brave enough to live it. 

Kenzie is a high school graduate who wants to be a filmmaker, and when the story begins it's like someone has pressed the pause button on her life. She tells her friends she's in Spain to have an adventure. She'll have a baby instead. She'll go to college second semester. No one will know. 

Sometimes with a camcorder, you record motion. Sometimes you try to stop it. Slow it down, find the shadows, know what lies between.

It's like Kenzie is in this place just waiting for a little while, but soon her life will resume again. There are times that she'll hit the rewind button to play scenes from her past, but she isn't moving forward. 

But then at some point in the story the camera starts to record and Kenzie begins to live again.

This is my movie beginning. 

This is my life. 

You don't have to leave to be free.

Part of the beauty of Small Damages is its form - that it's told entirely in Spain. But I wish we'd seen more of Kenzie coming out of that place. I know the story is about Kenzie taking care of herself, but for her character's growth, I wanted to see her deal with some things from her past that she regretted. I understand that it would have messed with the flow of the story, but there were some people I wanted her to talk to - even if it had been only a letter written. 

I love all the characters we meet in Small Damges. And I especially love the way that Estela and the Gypsies' stories flow into Kenzie's. An extremely subtle, lovely romance exists in this book as well. It is exactly my favorite kind. 

Cover: I usually ignore them, but this is a story that I judged incorrectly based on the cover alone. Although the colors are pretty, I kept looking at it and thinking this book was a lot racier than it is (because at first glance it looks like two people in bed). But it's not that kind of book at all.

Love Triangle Factor: Mild
Rating: 4.5 stars