Holeman's young adult books are character-driven and all deal with the protagonist's struggle to find her place in the world.

Poppy's search for identity in Raspberry House Blues is through the physical and emotional search for her birth mother. The absent mother is a theme that permeates several of Holeman's titles. This is because she believes there is a great deal of importance placed on a strong mother figure in a young person's life. Mothers are the most important characters in Raspberry House Blues. Of course, Poppy's birth mother never makes an actual appearance in the novel, but Poppy's surrogate physical manifestation of her is found in the "M" book Poppy creates, a scrapbook that contains pictures of actresses and models who physically resemble what Poppy thinks her mother would look like. Denise, the woman who, with Eric, adopted Poppy and has raised her...