This Is Our Place

by Vitor Martins, Larissa Helena

Genres: YA Contemporary; YA LGBT & Pride; YA Historical Fiction; General Fiction

Synopsis

Three teens -- in three different decades -- navigate life, love, and family in Vitor Martinss heartfelt new novel that spans generations. Perfect for fans of Tales from the City and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda.

If the walls of Number 8 Sunflower Street could talk ...

As Ana celebrates the new millennium, she is shocked to learn that she must leave behind her childhood home, her hometown, and -- hardest of all -- her girlfriend for a new life in Rio de Janeiro.

Ten years later, Greg is sent to live with his aunt -- who runs a video rental store from her garage and owns a dog named Keanu Reeves -- as his parents work out their not-so-secret divorce.

And ten years after that, Beto must put his dreams of becoming a photographer on hold as the Covid-19 pandemic arrives in Brazil, forcing him to live with his overprotective mother and overachieving sister.

Set in and narrated by the same house, Number 8 Sunflower Street, and in three different decades -- 2000, 2010, and 2020 respectively -- This Is Our Place is a novel about queer teens dealing with sudden life changes, family conflict, and first loves, proving that while generations change, we will always be connected to each other.

Release date: November 1, 2022

Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Print pages: 317

Sample

My story is nothing special. I was built in 1963  in a vacant lot on
Sunflower Street in downtown Lagoa Pequena, a rural city in the state of
São Paulo that rose to fame in the mid-1990s when it became the setting
of a primetime soap opera, but no one gave much thought to this tiny
place or its twenty-eight thousand residents after that. But I like it here so
much that I never dreamed of moving.
That was a joke.
I can’t move.
I thought it best to explain since I don’t know if every one gets house
humor.
But I really do like it here. As far as I can tell, Sunflower Street is a
 great place. Lots of trees, dogs taking their owners for walks, and a sweet
flower name that’s infinitely better than other streets named after racist
members of a monarchy that doesn’t even exist anymore, or corrupt politicians who were so honored after they built a school and a clinic.
Sunflower Street is an oasis in the middle of all that chaos. As far as I
know, anyway. I barely have any time to visit other places.
(That was another house joke.)
The stories that happen inside me are way better than my own. And
 there are many of them, by the way. Being a house, I’ve had a lot of dif ferent people living under my roof. I’m sure that owned houses are jealous of
rented houses; imagine having to live forever with the same family, listening to the same stories, the same gossip about Aunt Silmara who went
through a midlife crisis and got herself a boyfriend fifteen years her
ju nior, or Cousin Tadeu who either is gay or finds a new best friend every
six- and- a- half months. My stories go way beyond Silmara and Tadeu (both of whom have made perfectly acceptable life choices and do not deserve
their cruel, gossipy family).
I call them “my stories” because I’m possessive. And because it works
both ways. The residents call me “my house,” so I don’t see any prob lem
with calling their stories mine. They’ll never know, anyway, because I’m
very quiet. At least, I always have been. But now I’ve de cided to break my
silence.
You know when people say, “Oh, if these walls could talk?” They do. Or,
“Careful what you say, the walls are listening”? They are. Or even, “Whoa,
it’s as if this house can read my thoughts!” Fine, no one ever says that one.
But I can. Not every thought, of course. Just the loud ones. The ones that
scream in your head, desperate to pop out at any moment. It’s impossible
not to hear them. It’s hard not to notice the details when they’re happening inside me.
So, the next time a visitor comes over to your house and you say,
“Come in! Don’t mind the mess,” remember: I mind.
I mind the dishes you haven’t washed in six days just because the
weather turned, and now the dirty coffee mug buried under plates is
starting to grow mold. I mind the pile of laundry behind the door and the
dust that is accumulating on the top shelf because you think no one will
ever see it, anyway. I mind the wine stain on the couch that you tried to
hide under a quilt, and the nail holes on the wall that you covered with
toothpaste because you read online that it’s cheaper than buying
Spackle.
But I’m not as focused on the mess in me as I am on the mess in them.
That’s the mess I like to pay attention to. The confusing thoughts that keep them up at night; the tears that fall out of nowhere when an unexpected song starts playing; when they sing in the shower to forget all
their trou bles; the hours lost in front of a mirror making faces and asking, “What if this were really my face?”; the catastrophic fights followed
by apol o getic kisses that, deep down, still taste of anger.
I can feel all of it. I pay attention to all of it.
And now it’s my turn to speak. Meta phor ically, of course. I can’t speak.
I am a house.

 

                               ANA

 

DECEMBER 31, 1999
Ana knew the Y2K bug wasn’t going to happen. In part because her father,
Celso Carvalho, the computer genius of Lagoa Pequena and the surrounding areas, had spent the last six months watching every sensationalized
newscast on TV, yelling, “Y2K IS NOT GONNA HAPPEN!” while pacing
from one room to the other with a cup of coffee in his hand and an old
T- shirt that read super dad.
Celso makes a living taking apart and fixing computers, installing
software from a mountain of CDs, and speaking in a technical
 jargon no one else understands. If your computer has an issue, Celso
can take care of it. If humankind is threatened by a mysterious
Y2K  bug that will cause the loss of data, power, money, and sanity,
Celso will reassure you. Because he knows every thing, and Ana
trusts him.
Still, the two de cided to spend New Year’s Eve at home, just in case. In
the final moments of 1999, Celso doesn’t seem too sure that the world isn’t
about to collapse.
Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one—
The TV is still on, fireworks go off outside, the electricity remains