How to Build a House.

Seventeen-year-old Harper spends the summer working as a volunteer on a project to help build homes for tornado victims in Tennessee. Structured in chapters that recollect events in Tennessee and those during Harper’s past school year in California, the novel unfolds events from the present and reveals the past—the emptiness Harper feels following her parents’ divorce. Harper envies the closeness of the tornado-victim family and falls for the oldest boy. Greer embodies Harper’s first-person narration, capturing her insecurities, complexities, and spontaneity. With just-right pauses and emphasis, Greer heightens Reinhardt’s humor. She reads with enough of a southern twang to situate the novel. Teens will resonate with this novel, which is as much about rebuilding a sense of self as it is about building a home.