Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of This Full House by Virginia Euwer Wolff

This Full House by Virginia Euwer Wolff

This Full House

by Virginia Euwer Wolff

  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • Published:
  • Feb 2009, 496 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Each discovery disturbs the arrangements of the known world, and it is our job to stay alert to all possibilities.

LaVaughn believes she is keeping alert to all possibilities. She has made it through the projects, she's gotten over heartbreak, she's grown up, and now she's been admitted to the Women in Science program that might finally be her ticket to COLLEGE. But the discoveries she makes during her senior year in high school--two girls pregnant, with very few options--disturb everything in her known world. And in an effort to bring together people who should love each other, she jeopardizes the one prize she has sought her whole life long.

When do you know whether you're doing the right thing? What happens when you can't find a way to make lemonade out of lemons? Virginia Euwer Wolff takes on the biggest questions--about life and love, certainly, but also about girls and women, sacrifice and compassion--and has something quite revelatory to say about them in this full house.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Despite the book's oversimplification of religion and a conclusion that would seem pat if it were not so emotionally right, this portrayal of the dignity of poverty is quite the tearjerker. The audacity of hope, indeed. Ages 13-15." - Kirkus Reviews.

"Starred Review. The steady, sympathetic characterizations more than compensate for the unlikely plot twist ... and the trilogy closes warmly, sagely and, yes, even triumphantly. Ages 14–up." - Publishers Weekly.

"Readers who have come to care about the characters will find a fitting and optimistic end to the trilogy." - VOYA.

"The secret that anchors the plot is heavily contrived ... and an authorial tone occasionally intrudes [but] LaVaughn’s ferocious determination and intelligence will wholly captivate readers ..." - Booklist.

This information about This Full House was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Virginia Euwer Wolff Author Biography

Virginia Euwer Wolff was born on August 25, 1937 in Portland, Oregon. Her family lived on an apple and pear orchard near Mount Hood. She graduated from Smith College. She raised a son and daughter before going back to teaching high school English.

She was almost fifty years old when she started writing children books. Virginia thought she might have one or two good books in her before the end but that was proven wrong. Today, she is no longer teaching, but writes full-time.

Wolff has received many awards for her works, which include the Golden Kite Award for Fiction for her book Make Lemonade, the ALA Notable Book for Children for The Mozart Season and many, many others.

An accomplished violinist, she is a member of the Chamber Music Society of Oregon. She also enjoys hiking, ...

... Full Biography
Link to Virginia Euwer Wolff's Website

Name Pronunciation
Virginia Euwer Wolff: you-er wolf

Other books by Virginia Euwer Wolff at BookBrowse
  • True Believer jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more YA literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.