“I felt as though Mrs. Dinsmore had pressed a key into my hand, and that key had just opened up some secret part of the universe that had always been a mystery to me. Sounds like an exaggeration, but I guess you’d have to know how utterly baffled I’d been by life up until then.”

Stay is the twenty-ninth novel by award-winning American author, Catherine Ryan Hyde. Lucas Painter comes across the cottage in the woods by accident. The large dogs sitting outside shock him into fleeing, even though he knows he can’t outrun them. But it turns out not only to be non-lethal, but to actually be a positive experience, one that allows him to clear his mind of everything that bothers him.

And Lucas has a lot on his mind. His brother is away at war; his parents argue all the time; and his troubled best friend Connor’s house isn’t the refuge a home should be. Lucas returns to the woods and repeats it, running with the dogs, regularly, until one day when the dogs are behaving strangely.

Lucas ends up saving a life, but the old woman he saves, Zoe Dinsmore is anything but appreciative. She’s the most anti-social person he’s ever met, and he needs to know why. What he learns doesn’t deter him from the cottage. He finds that with Zoe Dinsmore, he can ask questions about life that he simply can’t ask his parents, and he gets decent answers, even when she comments: “Whew,” she said. “It really is a tough place inside that brain of yours, isn’t it?”

Lucas finds that talking to Zoe gives him insight and empathy, and he’s a good enough friend to Connor that he can share. He comes to realise: “It’s really important,” I say, “when you’re thinking bad thoughts about yourself, to remember that they might turn out to be wrong.” Later he recalls: “…we had her when we needed her the most— when we were scared and lost and all the grown -ups around us were letting us down.”

Ryan Hyde has an extraordinary talent for conveying the feelings and emotions of a fourteen-year-old boy, and she succinctly and beautifully describes the situation. She tackles some big topics: suicide and addiction, and how they are managed. And she gives her characters lots of wise words: “If something works, I figure … just leave it alone. Let it be a thing that worked. Not everything needs to be picked apart for better understanding. Sometimes it’s okay to just say thank you in the quiet of your head and move along.” A wonderful, uplifting read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing.