Unsinkable Cayenne

By Jessica Vitalis

Settling down isn't as easy as Cayenne hoped. Can she find her place in a new town?

4.1/5 Goodreads · 540 ratings

304 pages

$19.99Save 5%

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Bookroo's summary

Twelve-year-old Cayenne finally settles in a small town after years on the road. As she navigates seventh grade, she sees her life mirrored in the Titanic's social divides. Can she fit in with the popular crowd, or does she even want to? With a rundown home and a crush on a boy, Cayenne must decide if being 'normal' is worth the struggle. Set in the 1980s, this novel-in-verse explores belonging, family, and the quest for acceptance.

From the publisher

“Intensely readable.” –School Library Journal (starred review)When her unconventional parents finally agree to settle down in one place, twelve-year-old Cayenne’s dreams come true–but the reality of fitting in is much harder than she imagined. Acclaimed author Jessica Vitalis crafts an unforgettable historical novel-in-verse about belonging, family, and social class, for fans of Lisa Fipps’s Starfish and Jasmine Warga’s Other Words for Home.As Cayenne enters seventh grade, her parents decide it’s time to stop living in their van, roaming from place to place. Cayenne hopes that this means she will finally belong somewhere and make some friends. But it turns out that staying in one place isn’t easy at all.When her social studies class studies the Titanic tragedy (the wreckage has just been discovered and her teacher is obsessed), Cayenne sees more and more parallels between the social strata of the infamous ship and her own life. Will she ever squeeze her way into the popular girls’ clique, even though they live in fancy houses on the hill and she lives in a tiny, rundown home with chickens in the front yard? Is it possible that the boy she likes actually likes her back? Can she find a way to make room for herself in this town? Does she really want to? Maybe being “normal” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.Set in the mid-1980s, this literary novel is for readers of Megan E. Freeman’s Alone and Erin Entrada Kelly’s We Dream of Space.

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