Twelve Steps to Normal

After her father was sent to a rehab, Kira was sent to live with her aunt in Seattle, leaving behind everything and everyone she loves. Now she’s back to her old town and her father, wanting for everything – from her relationship with her dad to her bond with her friends – to go back to normal. But she soon realizes, despite her hopes, it’s not going to be easy to pick up where she left off.
Her dad invites three friends from the rehab – Nonnie, an old lady who, later on in the book, starts to almost fill the gap that Kira’s grandmother left after she died, Peach, who is a motherly type and cooks some delicious food, and Saylor who helps Kira with her homework and is working hard to become a yoga instructor – are living in her house when she gets home and are trying to put their lives back together as well. She is freaked out, for two reasons. First, she wants to be able to trust her father again and now three strangers are living with them, and second, if her social worker found out, Kira fears she would be sent away again.
Her three best friends are mad at her for not trying to stay in contact with them after she left, and totally neglecting their effort in trying to reach out for her (who can blame them), so there’s definitely a huge hole she needs to climb herself out of. Oh right, also, one of her best friends has started dating her ex-boyfriend, Jay, who Kira was madly in love with. This plot-twist definitely spices up the drama in the book. And of course, there’s sweet, caring Alex, who probably is the only normal person in her life, since her return, but her growing feelings for him, and her old feelings for Jay puts her, as well the readers, in a dilemma, though the answer becomes super obvious mid-way of the book.
As she starts to settle back into her life, and accept the changes around her. We see a development in Kira’s character as well as her relationship with the people in her life. The book also sheds light on the enormity of alcoholism, but rather than describing the darker aspects, it emphasizes on the lighter, more hopeful side of it, which brings the whole story to a bittersweet ending.