Americans in Space

A guidance counselor is at a loss in her personal life in Mitchell’s mediocre debut. Young widow Kate Cavanaugh has been going through the motions in the two years since her husband died of a heart attack. At work, she does her best with a cohort of troubled kids, but Kate is at sea when it comes to dealing with her own children: preschooler Hunter has an unhealthy emotional attachment to ketchup bottles, and teen Charlotte blames Kate for everything, including her dad’s death. Despite the support of her next-door neighbor and the possibilities offered by a new romance, Kate decides the only way to fix her family is to hit the road with them, though nothing, of course, goes as planned. Mitchell’s prose is sterling, but her character work is less than stellar; she doesn’t do anything new with the tired trope of the rebellious teen seeking solace online, while adorable Hunter is just a sideshow. Mitchell tries admirably to do something different with familiar grief material, but the frenzied antics and haphazard character development undermine the effort. (Oct.)