California Diaries #2: Sunny
Sunny’s mom is dying of cancer and Sunny is pissed. Of course. And so she’s up to some teenage angst shit, like piercing her belly button and getting sloshed at a party and wishing her mom would just die and get it over with so all the pain and suffering (for everyone) can be over.
In the mood for a little vacation, Sunny ditches school and takes the bus to Venice Beach, where she spends a few hours wandering around, people-watching and drinking fruit juice. Then she meets her ~dream boy~ who won’t tell her how old he is (he says “age is a bad traveling companion”) and pulls some total fuckboy moves like calling himself a “free spirit” and telling Sunny she should read Kerouac’s On the Road and Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and he even says “THOSE GUYS ARE ME. TOTALLY.” I’ll be right back.
Sorry, had to go to the hospital because of how hard I rolled my eyes. Anyway, RUN, SUNNY, RUN! Sunny does run… sort of… back to the beach and to Carson. She starts skipping a lot of school and spending time with her Faux Kerouac, who is four years older than her and has no idea she’s thirteen. Her teachers are getting annoyed with or are overly sympathetic and Sunny’s just raging. Dawn and Maggie don’t know what’s gotten into her, and Ducky is sympathetic but just a bystander. Meanwhile, Sunny’s dad keeps needing her help and her mom keeps leaving her heirloom “gifts” that just make Sunny mad because it’s a morbid reminder that her mom’s probably gonna die soon.
Sunny eventually gets fed up and runs away to Venice Beach. She dreams of finding Carson and joining him and cris-crossing the world together, doin’ whatever they gotta do. She, uh, doesn’t count on Carson not being into this plan. To his credit, when he finds out that she’s only thirteen and that she’s running away from a situation in which she has two parents who love her and friends who are worried about her, he’s like, “really? Get your shit together” and later-days-es out of there. So, now Sunny is stranded in Venice Beach with few options. She gets followed by a creepy stringy-haired man and almost resigns herself to sleeping under a pier, until she runs toward some police cars and finds that Ducky has come to rescue her. He’s so supportive, just like his namesake.
Ducky drives Sunny home and she crashes at Dawn’s before going home to face her parents who — duh — love her and were worried about her. This book has no real resolution other than me resolving to keep an on Sunny because she’s in danger, girl.
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