Christy Goerzen’s second novel featuring only child Maddie Turner finds the sensitive, artsy teen ecstatic when she’s named first runner-up in a portrait contest sponsored by her favourite art magazine. The prize includes $500 and an all-access pass to a slew of New York City art galleries, plus a chance to meet her art hero, Louise Bergville, and maybe land her big break in the arts scene. Even better, Maddie gets to celebrate her fifteenth birthday in the city of her dreams with her best friend, Anna.

Armed with a colour-coded, 134-page to-do list, Maddie feels poised on the verge of something big. She is convinced absolutely nothing will go wrong to spoil the best week of her life, especially with her tarot-card-reading, incense-burning, raw-food-eating mother, Lynn, safely back in their hometown of Vancouver.

Staying with Anna’s older brother in his Greenwich Village walk-up, Maddie joyfully checks off activities from her list, much to the chagrin of her exhausted pal. After three days of breakneck gallery hopping, vintage clothes shopping, sightseeing, and gastronomic indulging, Maddie’s plans are derailed by a surprise visit from a most unwelcome guest: her mother. What was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime becomes, for Maddie, a disastrous dream-crushing ordeal of epic proportions.

Thanks to the book’s convincing teen dialogue and believable characters, readers will identify with Maddie’s palpable excitement at her taste of freedom from parental watchfulness, her heady joy over a secret crush, and the unparalleled angst and eye-rolling embarrassment caused by her mother’s well-intentioned behaviour. A quick-paced, lighthearted yet insightful romp about a girl and her emotional, quirky, New Age mom, The Big Apple Effect deftly tackles important issues such as the boundaries of friendship, the dangers of self-pity, the value of self-awareness, and the healing power of forgiveness.