Saving Montgomery Sole

Tamaki, Mariko. Saving Montgomery Sole. 2016. 228p. ISBN 978-1-62672-271-2. Available as an audiobook from Overdrive.

Montgomery Sole is interested in the strange and the weird, and finds paranormal mysteries fascinating. She co-created the Mystery Club at her high school with her best friend Thomas, and they were joined by quirky Naoki. They explore such topics as ESP and travel projection, and they spend an inordinate amount of time discussing movies. Mystery Club is the highlight of Montgomery’s high school experience. For her, high school is hard. Not so much academically, but rather because of her unique family. See, Montgomery and her younger sister have two moms, and they live in a small Californian town where not everyone is accepting of her parents’ “lifestyle choices.”

While researching information for the Mystery Club, she discovers a website selling the Eye of Know. Montgomery is immediately intrigued, and the cost, less than 10 dollars, is attractive enough that she purchases the Eye. When she gets it, she begins to wear it. Harassed at school by a boy named Matthew, Montgomery gets angry and wishes him dead. He collapses on the field right in front of her, and has to be taken to the hospital. People begin whispering about her. When she overhears teens mocking her parents at a soccer game, she wishes them harm, and the stands collapses, swallowing one of the girls. Is the Eye of Know giving her these powers?

As Montgomery struggles with what to do, the arrival of a controversial reverend and church increases her anxiety. Hoping to save the town from from sinners and misguided individuals like her parents, Montgomery decides to fight back. Kenneth, the reverend son, becomes the target of her ire. But as she becomes consumed with protecting her family from the reverend using the Eye of Know, Montgomery risks losing sight of what’s most important to her, her friends and her family.