In Kate's Turn, sixteen-year-old Kate had made some wrong choices and had friends leading her down the wrong path, but during a coma she mysteriously spent time among her pioneer ancestors and had experiences that led her to change her ways. In Kate's Return, she's back at home and must deal with what comes next.

I had hoped that this book would address some of the emotional issues involved in Kate's making such a change in her life and subsequently dumping all her old friends. This is touched on a little in passages such as these, also quoted on the back cover:

Linda glared at Kate. "Do you have any idea how hard it was this summer, thinking you were going to die? Then I hear you've snapped out of the coma. You come home and I think things are going to be fine. Instead, you're like a stranger. You're my best friend and I don't even know you anymore!"

However, for the most part, Linda is only a caricature. For example, one quote from Linda's point of view goes as such: "(T)hey were all sick to death of Kate's new attitude. The Kate they had known was gone, replaced by a new, horribly improved version" (13). This quote may be a bit humorous, but it does nothing to show Linda's real pain and confusion. And it gives us no evidence that Kate should care about her. The character of Jace, Kate's old boyfriend, is even worse. He has no morals whatsoever, and is instead intent on getting revenge on Kate for dumping him. He's nothing more than a beady-eyed villain. Why did Kate spend the last two years of her life with him?

Fortunately, both of these old friends are dealt with fairly easily. Jace causes so much trouble that his parents send him away to live with a relative, and Linda gets herself killed after taking cocaine and then trying to drive home. Kate's pain over Linda's death is depicted reasonably well, except for the fact that Linda never seemed like anyone worth mourning over.

Meanwhile, Kate's story continues in a soap-opera fashion: Stuff happens. Girls in Kate's Young Women's group are suspicious of her, and their parents don't want them to associate with her, so for awhile she's in the terrifying position of having no real friends. But one girl comes around quickly, and Kate gives a great talk in Sacrament Meeting about what she's learned. She also has a boyfriend on a mission, Randy, and then starts dating Mike, who has yet to turn nineteen and go himself, so there's another conflict there to deal with. Then she goes away to college, and becomes involved with Ian, a returned missionary in a wheelchair, but she doesn't feel anything when he kisses her. Her aunt also gets her involved in genealogy, and she gets another ancestor's diary to read. Kate feels good about her life as the book ends, but the last words are "TO BE CONTINUED," and her romantic dilemmas are not all completely resolved.

As in the last book, the diary entries were interesting and a nice addition to the story, although not as pertinent as they were in Kate's Turn. And the "stuff" that happens might be interesting enough for young readers. Romantic entanglements can be fun, and it's nice to see a book about regular old relationships. Nobody's dying of cancer, or experiencing an eating disorder, or anything like that; they're just dating and going to school, and there's plenty of fallout that can come from just dating and going to school. Another important point here is that all of these young men are practicing Latter-day Saints. Some poorly-written LDS young adult pieces that I've read depict a girl having to choose between, say, a returned missionary and an alcoholic, and the story revolves around her making this choice that should be a no-brainer. But the right choice for Kate isn't so obvious. I am grateful that Crane didn't fall into the trap of making Kate choose between a "good" guy and a "bad" guy.

How the romantic entanglements are handled still bothers me, though. It seems that Kate is able to become involved emotionally with one guy and then move on to the next with few qualms or repercussions. Her friend Sandi is the same way. It's good that Kate is able to date several people, but she does it as if the guys' feelings don't matter. Or as if she has no real feelings for the last guy that she dated; she only experiences some minor confusion. It's good to show young people that they don't have to commit themselves to serious relationships that they aren't ready for, but they also need to see that "shifting gears," so to speak, isn't always easy. And that people you brush off now might not always be there when you come back.