It reminded me so much of the way I expressed myself as a teenager (although my poetry was decidedly rubbish), that it felt unmistakably realistic. The novel takes the form of poems Marcie writes in a notebook, interspersed with IMs with her best friend and song lyrics ( Shh. What also works in the book’s favour is that I was convinced this was the voice of a teenage girl. As I read Love and Leftovers, I felt I was reading poetry, not simply sentences broken into stilted shards. Tregay uses different styles of verse here effectively – smoothly transitioning between free form and more traditional poetic structures to suit each particular scene. Tregay’s writing breathes life into the premise, resuscitating a somewhat vanilla concept into something more complex and interesting.
This is a case where the verse is what makes the story compelling and vital. In a new place, Marcie can become a new person, but is that who she really wants to be? Alone in a new state, Marcie is attempting to balance a long distance relationship with her emo-rocker boyfriend, and the burgeoning interest of local jock J.D. There’s nothing particularly ground-breaking in the plot: Marcie’s parents have split up, her father has a new boyfriend, and her depressed mother has fled across the country, dragging Marcie with her. Love and Leftovers is an earnest, sweet story of a teenage girl’s journey through trials of the heart, family and friends. It’s fair to say that I’m fickle when it comes to verse novels - I can’t decide whether I like them or not.
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