I Don't Live Here Anymore

Charlotte’s life is changed forever when her parents’ marriage breaks up, and Charlotte has to leave her beloved house and her old life behind. Then two very different boys cross her path, and a new emotion creeps into her sadness and anger ― an emotion that is both confusing and sweet.

Charlotte falls in love with Carlo, tries to stay friends with tough-guy Sulzer and faces the jealousy of the cool-girl clique at school. As she watches her parents cope, sometimes haplessly, with changes in their own personal lives, and as she deals with a new baby brother, a potential stepfather and unexpected house moves, she realizes that love is a messy and risky business.

If grownups can make such a hash of it, how on earth can a fifteen-year-old cope?

But Charlotte does cope, magnificently, as she tries to figure out how to be a big sister, a daughter, a friend, a good person. And in the end she finds the courage to take responsibility for her own actions, and sets off to be with the boy she loves.

Set in a small town on the Austrian Danube, this is a familiar story that will touch a chord with every teenager, yet it is told with refreshing emotional honesty. Devoid of the judgment, sentimentality, sitcom snark or sexual precociousness that define so many North American young adult novels about first love, this story shows a strong, open, curious girl stumbling and prevailing as she figures out how to turn away from the noise of other people’s expectations, and listen to her own heart.

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Gr 9 Up—Set in Austria, this coming-of-age novel is similar in tone and subject matter to Sarah Dessen's young adult works about growing up amid difficult family and social dynamics. Fifteen-year-old Charlotte is uprooted from her childhood home with her two younger brothers when their mother discovers their father's infidelity. Charlotte experiences grief over the move and the ensuing divorce at the same time as she's falling in love with a new boy at school, Carlo, with whom she has her first sexual experience. Charlotte is also having trouble keeping up with her school work. While this title is a fast and easy read and the character of Charlotte is well developed, it's hard to see other characters as real people, like her mother and father or a mean girl at school, Hanna. They appear in the novel in short bursts and then disappear from the scene just as quickly. Readers will find that this slim novel doesn't fully take advantage of its characters. Feeling like more of a highlight reel of events, this narrative misses an opportunity by not presenting more of Charlotte's relationship with Carlo and her family members. VERDICT Recommended as an additional purchase for high school library collections.—Shalini Miskelly, St. Benedict Catholic School, Seattle, WA REVIEW
An immersive, believable portrait of how adolescents cope, or not, with divorce, drawn from an inside view. Powerful and deeply resonant. ― Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW

Subtle and nuanced, this fine coming-of-age novel has the delicate strength of a strand of silk. ― The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gabi Kreslehner was born in Linz, Austria. She is a teacher and writes for young readers and adults. I Don’t Live Here Anymore, her first novel, was published to huge acclaim in Germany (Charlottes Traum), receiving the Peter Härtling Prize, the Hans im Glück Prize and the Steiermark Prize for Young Adult Literature. Gabi lives with her family in Ottensheim, Austria, a town on the Danube that is very much like Charlotte’s.



SHELLEY TANAKA is an award-winning author, translator and editor who has written and translated more than thirty books for children and young adults. She teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts in the MFA Program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Shelley lives in Kingston, Ontario.

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