This Full House by Virginia Euwer Wolff

The conclusion to the Make Lemonade Trilogy (Make Lemonade, True Believer, This Full House) closes the circle of famiy around LaVaughn and Jolly.  Virginia Euwer Wolff, who introduced the open prose poetry style of writing to YA literature, seems to have sculpted each word and sentence from a meditation on teen pregnancy and the challenges of being a single mother.  The stubborn perseverance of the characters as they work toward their goals – LaVaughn wants to go to college, Jolly wants her GED – is riddled with self-doubt and anger.  One of them has no idea who her mother was, one has a mother whose presence can be overbearing.

The novel is undermined somewhat by a coincidence that is almost jolting its unlikeliness  when it is introduced, but otherwise the story brings the trilogy to an emotionally satisfying conclusion .cy

When life deals you a bad hand, it takes some effort, skill and a bit of luck to draw to a full house.