First up, The Fort of Nine Towers. This book is a rarity — a coming of age memoir about Afghanistan, written by an Afghan in English. With Khaled Hosseini’s new novel in stores, and the consistent, continuing popularity of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns with teens, this is an ideal time to introduce a nonfiction alternative in our libraries.

I read the first 40 pages of Flora before parting with it. If I had read Ron Charles’ Washington Post review first, I never would have. I’m experiencing a slight Turn of the Screw obsession at the moment because I’m reading Adele Griffin’s Tighter, which is an altered version that, frankly, is just brilliant so far. And I saw Benjamin Britten’s opera version of The Turn of the Screw performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music a few months ago. This is a story that can never be pinned down. That fact simultaneously drives me crazy, causes me to hate it, and makes it irresistible. All those possible versions of the truth. Mental instability? Ghosts? Both? Most of the story’s appeal is left up to atmosphere, and the slowly dawning realization that something just isn’t right. And those unreliable children. Flora features a precocious child whose life is changed one summer.

Golden Boy is by a 25-year-old wunderkind (this is not even her debut), and concerns an intersex teen who identifies as male. It is immediately unputdownable, and also told by multiple narrators, a technique I tend to enjoy as a reader. I think a variety of points of view generally appeals to teen readers, too, especially those obsessed with the novels of Jodi Picoult.

OMAR, Qais Akbar. A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story. 396p. maps. Farrar. Apr. 2013. Tr $27. ISBN 978-0-374-15764-7. LC 2012034566.  

Adult/High School–A memoir set in Afghanistan is not a feel-good kind of story. And yet, Omar’s memoir is focused firmly on his large, close-knit family, and how the fighting influenced their lives. Omar begins his story during the peaceful years that occurred after the Russians left and before the Civil War. His prosperous family lived in the house of Omar’s grandfather in Kabul, where uncles, aunts, and children could all gather around a large table for meals. Omar was especially close to his cousin Wakeel, a champion kite flyer. Gradually the fighting between Afghani factions made life in their neighborhood too dangerous, so the family moved to the Qala-e-Noborja, or the “Fort of Nine Towers,” an ancient walled compound across the city. Nowhere was safe for long, however. The Omars were forced to travel throughout the country seeking a peaceful place to live. Omar’s descriptions of the places they stayed, the hospitality of the Afghan people, and the tremendous bonds of family grant an insider’s look at Afghanistan’s natural culture. Today’s American teens, born around the time of September 11, may only know of Afghanistan in terms of terrorism and endless warfare. They will be fascinated to learn how Afghani teens lived. Often unable to leave his home, sometimes subjected to unimaginable atrocities, Omar comes of age in a deeply disturbed environment. Through it all, his family remains close and deeply loving. Much like Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis (Pantheon, 2003), The Fort of Nine Towers is a unique, poignant, coming-of-age story.–Diane Colson, formerly at Palm Harbor Library, FL

GODWIN, Gail. Flora. 288p. Bloomsbury. May 2013. Tr $26. ISBN 9781620401200.  

Adult/High School–Godwin has written a bildungsroman that builds dread as the story progresses and then pays off dramatically.  Ten year-old Helen is like so many young protagonists–too smart, too self-absorbed, too impetuous, and too skilled at hearing things she ought not. She is left in the care of her cousin Flora when her beloved grandmother unexpectedly dies and her father eagerly fulfills a summer obligation working on the atomic bomb in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, impatient to get away from the family home in North Carolina. For Helen, still reeling from her grandmother’s death, spending time with Flora–who regularly corresponded with her grandmother and grew up with Helen’s long-deceased mother–brings up feelings of abandonment. She is jealous of Flora’s memories of her mother and driven to distraction when she realizes that Flora has saved all of her grandmother’s correspondence. Her misery is compounded when a polio outbreak leads Helen’s father to impose quarantine. Visits from Finn, a discharged soldier and grocery deliveryman, soon become the summer’s bright spots. Finn becomes their link to the outside world, bringing news of the War, along with tidbits from town. He is also the companion needed to bridge the gap in age and temperament. Inevitably, they both fall in love with his gentleness, intelligence, and grace. But the three will learn by summer’s end that one rash act can damage others’ lives irreparably. Teens will appreciate Helen’s shock at realizing the transience of friendship and the occasional cruelty of those who know you best.–Meghan Cirrito, formerly at Queens Public Library, Jamaica, NY

TARTTELIN, Abigail. Golden Boy: A Novel. 352p. Atria. May. 2013. Tr $24.99. ISBN 9781476705804. LC 2012049192.  

Adult/High School–Max Walker is something of a star in his small British town. It’s not only because he is gorgeous and seems to be good at everything he does from football to kissing the girls who flock to him, but also because his father is an elected official. Now that Max is turning 16, his father Steve decides it is time to run for a higher office, but Max’s mother Sylvie reminds Steve that he promised to wait, and she worries about the effect on their son. He is intersex, and Sylvia worries about what will happen if someone finds out. But there is someone in the family’s close circle who already knows who will blow the situation wide open. Hunter is a childhood friend who is heading down a troubled path. One night, in a drunken haze, he rapes Max, whose parents had decided against surgically removing the genitalia of either sex when Max was a baby, and in Max’s pain and suffering this family’s tragic story unfolds. The story is told in mostly first person from the various character’s points of view, and readers cannot help but be overwhelmed as every possible negative scenario is played out. But the sensitive treatment of intersexuality, coupled with the fully realized characters, from the precocious younger  brother, to the mother who struggles in very real ways, to the sensitive doctor through whose eyes the biology of intersexuality is explained, all override any hesitation and drive a need to find out what happens to these people. This is an important book.–Jake Pettit, American School Foundation, Mexico City

from graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith:

The Empathy Muscle

Vance and Berger practice storytelling and visual art in a manner that brings immediacy to history and universality to distinctly detailed fictional characters. The influences of politics, economics and individual chance all have as much bearing on what we can and do make of ourselves as do our ambitions. Charles Dickens was the master of depicting this so that readers could experience empathy with the downtrodden, see behind their own prejudices about their social “betters” and come face to face with questions about how they themselves might have responded in situations such as those surrounding the hero Oliver Twist or such important, yet minor, characters as Miss Havisham. In Fred/Jim, we have not an Oliver Twist but a character as strong and as accessible, just as Gordon, Betty, and the others in Fred’s life have their own lives as well as influences on his.

American history curricula at the secondary school level rarely delve into the power politics of strikes and the criminal elements engaged in union busting during the Great Depression. Yet, teen readers will find that aspect of the action here as fascinating as the guaranteed gangster-thrills provided by the worst of the bad men, the empathy-leached Bill Sykeses who lurk in dark alleys and murder such semi-innocents as Fred’s girl friend. That Fred receives an education–clearly more that than indoctrination as political critics so often reduce it–in the theories of communism makes good sense in circumstances where we see the poverty of the period so vividly, but also have come to understand that our hero’s brain thirsts for theory to explain reality. That it is the Communists who provide for his prosthetic leg is perhaps heavy handed symbolism for sophisticated readers with a thorough understanding of political history, but teens may find this a perfect opportunity to experience the power of storytelling’s props to both carry the narrative and expose aspects of its underpinnngs.

Gordon’s story within the story is gracefully enclosed, an echoing demand that reader empathy replace the original antipathy his character rouses in both Fred and the reader. Like Dickens’ Fagin, rather than the flat evil Bill, his twisted personality is shown to be the result of efforts to cope with life’s imperfectly dealt hand.

What would I do? That is the question that provokes reader growth. Vance and Berger create a story so artful that the question refuses to fade long after Fred–and Gordon–have had their stories shown.

VANCE, James. On the Ropes. illus. by Dan E. Burr. 247p. Norton. Mar. 2013. Tr $24.95. ISBN 978-0-393-06220-5. LC 2012037353.  

Adult/High School–Returning to expand on their excellent Kings in Disguise (Norton, 1988), Vance and Burr have created a meaty graphic novel that weaves adventure, politics, noir crime, and the Great Depression into a seamless and fully engaging whole. Teenaged Fred Bloch has taken to the road, more to fill his belly and active mind than to escape his youth. After adventuring as a hobo–and losing a part of his leg in a train accident–he is taken in and given both prosthetic medical care and an education by members of a Communist Party cell. Then, it’s off to join the circus, where Fred assists a bitter and alcoholic “magician” whose shtick is escaping a hangman’s noose and gibbet before cheering crowds. Both Fred and Gordon, the escapist, believe that they are keeping their personal secrets from each other. Fred’s includes his work for the Party, which entails regular instructions mailed to towns the circus will visit, addressing him as Jim Nolan. Union busters are hard on the mysterious Jim’s trail, and Fred himself longs for a life that allows him to follow his nascent writing career. Period style black-and-white comics tell important aspects of this story and its varied cast of characters. The era’s workers’ rights struggles, complicated as they were by party politics and gangsterism, spring to life as the story unfolds, but the evolution of Fred from hopeful boy to wiser young man satisfyingly remains at center stage.–Francisca Goldsmith, Infopeople Project, CA 

With that in mind, nothing in particular ties together the five books reviewed below, except that they were published in January and February and we want to get the word out on them.

The big name here is Sister Souljah–whose books have been hugely popular with teens for almost fifteen years–but no less impressive are a trio of crime novels (two debuts), and an unclassifiable SF/Horror/Fantasy/Something.

Jamie Mason, Holly Goddard Jones, and Timothy Hallinan each take a unique angle at the crime novel.  For Mason, the crime genre trappings of  Three Graves Full bely the beauty of her prose and her deeply weird sense of humor.  Jones’s The Next Time You See Me, meanwhile, revels in its unreliable narration, not a frequent feature of your average procedural.  And as I say in my review, Timothy Hallinan has almost too much fun turning noir inside out in his Junior Bender series.  Little Elvises is the second in the series, but stands alone admirably, and is the best of the three published so far.

Finally, we have Robert Jackson Bennett’s American Elsewhere. Bennett has a heap of awards for his speculative fiction, and some have described this novel as horror–indeed, early on, I was making comparisons with Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers–but really, as I say below, this novel defies categorization of any kind. 

JONES, Holly Goddard. The Next Time You See Me. 384p. Touchstone: S.& S. Feb. 2013. Tr $24.99. ISBN 9781451683363.

Adult/High School–Thirteen-year-old Emily is an odd girl. She seems to have no instinct for social survival in eighth grade, where classmates circle like hungry sharks. When she discovers a decomposing body in the woods, she tells no one. Rather, she begins stopping in the woods on her way home from school to visit it.  Emily’s teacher, Susanna Mitchell, is unhappy in her marriage and preoccupied with problems of her own. It seems the final straw when her husband shows little concern over the disappearance of her  sister, Ronnie, a notorious bad girl around town. Meanwhile, a middle-aged factory worker, Wyatt, is conned by some younger coworkers to drink himself senseless and then leave him with the tab. This is how Wyatt becomes the last person to see Ronnie before her disappearance. The narration skips among these characters and more, as the mystery of the body in the woods and Ronnie’s disappearance tumbles towards an obvious conclusion. Nothing beyond that is obvious in this novel, however. Readers must decipher where the truth lies in the confluence of all these points of view. Someone here is not who they appear to be… but who is it? The blend of foreboding mood and psychological tension is similar to that in some of Stephen King’s or Tana French’s novels. An excellent example of unreliable narration.–Diane Colson, formerly at Palm Harbor Library, FL

MASON, Jamie. Three Graves Full. 320p. Gallery: S & S. Feb. 2013. Tr $24.99. ISBN 9781451685039.

Adult/High School–Mason’s strangely powerful debut begins with an elaborate, macabre joke: Jason is so skittish of the overgrown yard where he has buried a body that he hires a gardener to assuage the imagined suspicions of his neighbors; in due course, the gardener discovers a corpse, leading directly to the discovery of a second corpse, but neither one is the body of the man Jason has killed. As Mason follows the murder investigation, headed by detectives Tim Bayard and Ford Watts, with generous diversions examining the events leading up to each murder, she manages to maintain this precarious balance between the psychological realism of her characters and the barely contained ridiculousness of the situations with wit and verve. At times the plot–which veers between the stories of Jason; Leah, the wife of one of the dead men; Boyd Montgomery, the second murderer; and the two detectives–threatens to run off the road, but Mason holds it steady with her fabulous prose–highlighted by a tremendous facility for fresh metaphors, often based in the natural world–and her carefully detailed characterizations. The dark humor and aura of surreality won’t appeal to everyone, but readers in sync with the novel’s tone will be clamoring for more from Mason.–Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA

BENNETT, Robert Jackson. American Elsewhere. 680p. Orbit: Hachette. Feb. 2013. pap. $13.99. ISBN 9780316200202.

Adult/High School–There is something deeply wrong with the town of Wink, NM. When former police detective Mona Bright inherits a house that her mother once owned, she feels compelled to see the home of her long-dead mother, but the town fails to appear on any map of the area. Once she has finally located it, she immediately senses something strange about the townspeople–houses and lawns too perfect, people somewhat off, like something out of The Stepford Wives. Then there is the strange, noiseless blue lightning, the perpetually pink moon, and the fact that locals never leave their houses at night. And what about the fact that the laws of space and time seem to work just a little differently here? Mona begins to believe the strangeness has something to do with the deserted government research lab where her mother once worked, but as the novel proceeds, it becomes clear that the lab’s science is just one small piece of a pandimensional mystery. The novel’s movement from the simple human oddity of the early chapters, to the science of the mid-novel, to the much larger, world-shattering revelations of the conclusion recalls TV’s Lost, but Bennett handles the ratcheting movement of his novel with far more deftness and coherence than that show ever managed. Horror? Science Fiction? Fantasy? Mystery? Family drama? Readers may not know what genre they’re reading until the very end, but anyone with a taste for the strange and creepy should enjoy every moment.–Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA

SOULJAH, Sister. A Deeper Love Inside: The Porsche Santiaga Story. 1. 432p. Atria. 2013. Tr $26.99. ISBN 9781439165317.

Adult/High School–Sister Souljah’s The Coldest Winter Ever (Pocket, 1999) is arguably one of the best books of life on the streets; the voice of its protagonist, Winter, is flawless. This stand-alone sequel doesn’t come close. On the upside, readers find out what happened after the drug bust that destroyed life as Winter and her family knew it. Porsche, Winter’s younger sister, escapes from juvie with the help of  Riot and her brother, Revolution. She reunites with her momma–who is now a crack addict–and she falls in love. On the downside, the plot is inauthentic and slow, predominantly narration rather than action. As a result, there is little opportunity to form an emotional connection to the characters. Porsche, who is anywhere from 8 to 16 though the book, sounds as if she were 30 with a few exceptions. She seems to have multiple personalities, but readers may be challenged in figuring that out. The metaphorical promise of Riot and Revolution’s names does not materialize. It’s a grim reality that close to 95% of girls living on the streets are sexually assaulted, yet Porsche escapes that fate, unrealistically amassing $50k by the time she is 14 by working at odd jobs, never being questioned by authorities or other adults. In the end, Porsche is married with two babies, happily cooking organic foods and loving her 18-year-old husband. In spite of its lack of realism and disjointedness, fans of all ages have been waiting for this book and they will ask for it.–Amy Cheney, Alameda County Library, Juvenile Hall, CA

HALLINAN, Timothy. Little Elvises. 352p. bibliog. Soho Crime. 2013. Tr $25. ISBN 9781616952778.

Adult/High School–In Hallinan’s second “Junior Bender” mystery, Junior is reluctantly drawn into solving two mysteries. The first is thrust upon him by a cop whose uncle is suspected of murder.  It seems that the uncle, Vinnie, was a famous music svengali in the ’50s and ’60s, churning out dozens of “rock” records by squeaky clean, good looking boys–“Little Elvises.” Now, a tabloid reporter has been found dead on the Hollywood Walk of Fame star of one of Vinnie’s singers, and Junior has to find the real killer before Vinnie is arrested. Meanwhile, the owner of the garish, Christmas-themed motel where Junior is staying begs him to find her grown daughter who was last seen living with a very shifty character.  Hallinan’s sly take on the hard-boiled genre is fresh, lively, and very funny, often involving a flip in its polarities: instead of an anti-hero detective who is willing to break the rules, Junior is an genuine burglar who is willing to solve some crimes; there may be some femme fatales, but they tend to be somewhat less than fatal; and nothing is quite hard-boiled enough that Junior can’t stop in to check on his 13-year-old daughter, whose cheeky presence is a joy. Readers need no background knowledge of the ’50s music scene–although they may miss one or two jokes–or detective fiction, but teens out there with knowledge of both will find this novel especially rewarding.–Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA

First, our starred review of the day – The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. Wolitzer’s fiction is always excellent and often provocative. Everyone, from the New York Times to EW and People, is wild for this one, calling it her break-out book. Comparisons to Jonathan Letham and Jeffrey Eugenides abound. This is about a group of friends and what becomes of them, and it all begins at an arts camp for teens. Wolitzer herself had a similar experience, which she describes in an interview with Jane Ciabattari on The Daily Beast, “Like my main character Jules in my novel, I’d grown up in the suburbs. Unlike her, my mother was a writer, so I came from a house filled with good books. And my parents had always taken us into the city to MOMA and to see what were known as “arthouse” movies. But you probably can’t do all that with your parents and have it change your life; you have to do it on your own. It wasn’t until I could go off and enter that world by myself that I came to really love it and feel excited by it. My closest friend, to this day, is someone I met that summer.”

That idea of having to be on your own to experience major change as an adolescent is such a good one. Wolitzer also tackles the idea of comparing oneself to others and the envy that can result, even in comparison to a close friend. Teens are certainly susceptible to that feeling.

You is the second novel by Austin Grossman, whose 2007 debut, Soon I Will Be Invincible, is a terrific riff on superheros and villains. Grossman is a videogame designer, and his experience shows in You. Teen gamers will relish the insider look at game development and design. No, this is not at all like Ready Player One. No dystopian future here. This is the story of a guy who needs a job, and goes back to a group of high school friends made good to get one. Like The Interestings, this is an examination of friendships, especially those that begin during adolescence (during summer computer camp!) and continue into adulthood.

Amity & Sorrow is a whole ‘nother story. Peggy Riley‘s debut follows a mother and her two daughters as they flee a polygamist cult and end up on a farm in the Midwest. Everything is new. Neither of the teenagers has been taught to read, has heard of such a thing as a library, or even seen a town. Putting the two sisters at odds with each other (one relishes their new life, the other longs to return to her father) was a genius move, creating conflict even after escape has been achieved. There is an excellent interview with the author in the Los Angeles Times.

* WOLITZER, Meg. The Interestings. 464p. Riverhead. Apr. 2013. Tr $27.95. ISBN 9781594488399.  

Adult/High School–One summer in the early 1970s five teenagers–Ash, Goodman, Jonah, Ethan, and Jules–meet at a summer camp for artistic kids, and form a bond that affects the rest of their lives. The story follows them well into adulthood, where it sometimes seems that they are all still teenagers inside. Although some readers might not be especially interested in middle-aged adults, by the time they get to that part of the book, they will be attached to the characters and invested in their lives. More importantly, Wolitzer explores personal questions that should resonate with many teens: those who wonder if their friendships will last and how they will play out; or simply wonder how they will turn out–if they’ll find love, success, or a valid career in the arts. And what happens when expectations and dreams aren’t met or are derailed? The author also explores the big question of what happens when your life turns out very differently from your friends’ lives. As an adult, Jules observes that if the group were to meet now, they wouldn’t be friends, but because they became friends as teenagers they have an unbreakable bond. This is an undeniably appealing premise and one that is sure to attract many readers.–Sarah Debraski, formerly of Somerset County Library System

GROSSMAN, Austin.  You. 320p. Little, Brown/Mullholland. Apr. 2013. Tr $25.99. ISBN 9780316198530; ebook ISBN 9780316198554.  

Adult/High School–“So what’s your ultimate game?” So begins Grossman’s ode to great video games that provide an escape from the fear and uncertainty of young adulthood. In a job interview, Russell is asked to create his ultimate game on-the-fly in order to land a job at the innovative and exciting gaming company Black Arts. It is also his chance to re-join his high school friends and the founders of Black Arts: Darren, Simon, and Lisa. After years of wandering through college and graduate programs, he’s beginning to think he should have never ditched them at the end of high school. Russell is hired as Black Arts is feverishly releasing the next version of its award-winning Realms series, a game with a terrible secret hidden in its code. Russell’s story unfolds in flashbacks to high school, learning how to program with his friends and attending computer camp together, where the seeds of Realms were sown. While he plays through the Realms catalogue, trying to find the bug that threatens the future of both the company and Russell’s first shot at a career he loves, he examines his friendships with the company’s founders, especially the mysteriously deceased Simon, and sees parallels of both his life and the lives of his friends in the battles and dark bargains in the games. Grossman is not afraid to experiment with almost hallucinatory passages of video game play, and readers who feel equally passionate about how games can transport players and make real life bearable will be up for the challenge of You.–Meghan Cirrito, formerly of Queens Library, NY

RILEY, Peggy. Amity & Sorrow. 320p. Little, Brown. Apr. 2013. Tr $25.99. ISBN 9780316220880.  

Adult/High School–Amity and Sorrow, now almost teens, have grown up on an Idaho compound and never been anywhere or known anything else. They have 50 mothers and their father is considered God to the cult. Amaranth–their birth mother–is the first wife. It is a shock, then, when a fire (the end of the world?) breaks out and their mother gets them in the car and drives off the property. Days later, when she crashes the car in rural Oklahoma near Bradley’s farm and gas station, there is nothing to do but sleep on Bradley’s porch. The story is really Amaranth’s; it’s told through her eyes and experience, but Sorrow’s story is the one that will haunt readers. Beautifully written at a slow, nuanced pace, the novel gradually reveals spare details of their life, past and present. Their isolation, their conflicts with their new situation are completely believable. Sorrow has the most difficult time. She wants to go back. She belongs with her father; she was his Oracle. She continues to “read” and even create signs, and there is no changing how she sees the world and her place in it. Amity sways between protecting her sister and the excitement of her new situation. Teens on a roll with Emma Donoghue’s Room (Little, Brown, 2012), Shelley Hrdlitschka’s Sister Wife (Orca, 2008), and Michele Dominguez Greene’s Keep Sweet (Simon Pulse, 2011) will want to read this book.–Amy Cheney, Alameda County Library, Juvenile Hall, CA

Readers of mysteries know that small towns are deceptive – they’re not the safe places they should be.  Just look at St. Mary’s Mead and Cabot Cove, with murder rates that rival New York City’s.  And those friendly neighbors? You never know what deep dark secrets the new people-next-door are hiding, let alone the sweet old lady down the street who has lived there for decades.  Camilla Läckberg’s Fjällbacka is yet another of those picturesque former fishing villages-turned-tourist destinations that on the surface looks nice but behind closed doors…

In the series opener, Ice Princess (Pegasus, 2010) Erica’s childhood best friend Alexandra is found, wrists slit, frozen beneath the ice in the bathtub of her childhood home.  Inadvertently drawn into the investigation, she begins to search for the truth behind Alex’s life and in the process reconnects with Patrik Hedström, the local policeman who was one of their classmates (and who just happened to have a major crush on Erica).  Over the course of the investigation, they begin a relationship that grows over the course of the series.  The second book, The Preacher (Pegasus, 2011) brings us yet another strange death: a German tourist is found dead, in a grave she shares with the skeletons of two girls who have been missing for decades.  By The Stonecutter (Pegasus, 2012), Läckberg has settled into a pattern: initial murder, followed by several seemingly unrelated murders interspersed with the backstory of both the (as yet unknown) murderer and victims.  Patrik leads the investigation with the help of some of his colleagues and the hindrance of others, including his humorously inept captain.  At home, Erica moves from being his girlfriend to his wife and they have a child (not necessarily in that order).

And now comes the newest entry into the series, The Stranger:

LÄCKBERG, Camilla. The Stranger. tr. from Swedish by Stephen T. Murray. 4. 384p. (Patrik Hedström Series). Pegasus Crime. May 2013. Tr $25.95. ISBN 9781605984254.

Adult/High School–The town of Fjällbacka has been invaded by a reality show, Sodding Fjällbacka–a version of The Real World populated by celebrities from other reality shows. One “character,” Barbie, is at the center of a rather violent argument between the roommates and then goes missing, only to reappear as a murder victim. Will the show continue shooting? Of course! Murder makes for good ratings, after all. Patrik, longtime colleague Martin, and his new colleague Hanna try to figure out who killed Barbie and, more importantly, why. This investigation overshadows the death of a teetotaler who was in a car crash and somehow had a blood alcohol level that was many times over the legal limit. Soon it becomes clear that the two deaths are related to each other and to several other mysterious deaths around Sweden. Läckberg’s is able to keep clues to the mystery hidden rather than telegraphed. And as always, the side plots of the machinations within the police department and at home with Patrik’s wife, Erica, and her family are included, lowering the tension of the growing body count. This series is being touted as an example of Swedish noir, but the addition of the less serious characters puts it into a lighter category. This is perfect for mystery readers who want a different type of police procedural or are looking for a bridge between lighter mysteries and the darkness of Jo Nesbø and Stieg Larsson.–Laura Pearle, Center for Fiction, New York City

This is an element that teens rarely mention when they share what they enjoy reading, or how much they liked a particular book. But many teens like to explore far-away parts of the world with which they are unfamiliar. In The Fever Tree, a romantic saga of a novel, Jennifer McVeigh introduces readers to colonial South Africa.

Other teens want to immerse themselves in a particular place during a certain time period. World War II occupied Paris is certainly a fascinating setting, and one used by many and varied authors. All the Light There Was provides a new slant. Like Orringer did for the Hungarian experience in The Invisible Bridge, Kricorian represents the Armenian experience. Her special interest is in the daily life of her characters — see her website for more about her inspiration. All the Light There Was is also a romance, and the first person narrative makes it fresh and exciting.

In The Fate of Mercy Alban, the house in which much of the novel takes place is a character in itself. Alban House is more like a mansion, and although the book’s cover brings to mind an English country estate, this one is on the shores of Lake Superior. Wendy Webb’s latest spooky gothic mystery of family secrets was inspired by a visit to a specific place.

MCVEIGH, Jennifer. The Fever Tree. 432p. Amy Einhorn: Putnam. Apr. 2013. Tr $25.95. ISBN 9780399158247.

Adult/High School–The Fever Tree starts with a trope of historical romance: a respectable young woman of considerable wealth and a bright future is plunged into destitution with a father’s bad investments and unexpected death. Frances Irvine is faced with two equally undesirable prospects: be nursemaid to her aunt’s young children or marry an awkward doctor and move to South Africa. With her choice made, she leaves England behind, and her adventure begins. Soon, a love triangle emerges as Frances must choose between the dashing rebel of questionable morals and the obsessed, goody-two-shoes doctor: the age-old Darcy versus Willoughby played out in the dusty plains of Africa. The novel moves beyond its genre trappings with its palpable setting and sure characters. McVeigh has penned a story where the place, in this case South Africa, is a central character. At the same time the characters evolve from their clichéd introductions. Teens will experience both exasperation and empathy toward Frances. The novel underscores, as historical novels often do, the limited choices available to women, and elements about African colonization, the ethics surrounding diamond mining and trading, as well as a small-pox outbreak provide further depth to this coming-of-age tale. The romance propels the story, but it is an old-fashioned saga at heart. Readers watch Frances grow up, hoping she will make decisions that lead to her own happiness.–Karen Keys, Queens Library, Jamaica, NY

KRICORIAN, Nancy. All the Light There Was. 288p. Houghton Harcourt. Mar. 2013. Hardcover $24. ISBN 9780547939940.  

Adult/High School–For Maral and her older brother, Missak, Paris is home; they know little of the terrors their parents endured when they were forced to leave their homeland of Armenia.  Fourteen year-old Maral is nearly top in her class. Her secret love is Missak’s best friend, Zaven, and she is thrilled to discover that Zaven also has feelings for her, but this happy first love is tarnished when the German army marches into Paris. At first, a resistance activity such as distributing pamphlets seems a lark, a secret outing to hide from the parents. But as Jewish friends disappear, and young activists are arrested and sent to work camps, the sense of foreboding increases. Zaven and Maral pledge themselves to each other even as they fear their romance may have no future. Indeed, the war lasts much longer and is far more ruthless than their young minds could have anticipated. Maral, who narrates the story, never sees a battlefield, but her life is completely fractured by the war: some of her friends die, while others return broken. Readers should be intrigued by the many teen characters, striving to be as brave and dutiful as circumstances demand. Like the teen characters in Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity (Hyperion, 2012) or Chris Bohjalian’s Skeletons at the Feast (Shaye Areheart, 2008), dreams of high school proms are pushed aside by the will to survive.–Diane Colson, formerly at Palm Harbor Library, FL

WEBB, Wendy. The Fate of Mercy Alban. 344p. Hyperion. 2013. pap. $15.99. ISBN 978-1-4013-4193-0. LC 2012027376.

Adult/High School–Even for a rich family, the Albans of Minnesota are a bit different–their mansion is made from imported Irish stone; there are altogether too many deaths for there not to be a family curse; and the women are all named after some attribute (Grace, Amity, Charity, Fate). Twenty years ago, Grace left town, escaping not only her family, but the repercussions of surviving a storm that led to her brothers’ drownings and father’s suicide. When her mother dies, Grace returns for the funeral, bringing her daughter Amity with her. While looking through her mother’s room she finds letters from David Colville, a reporter who committed suicide on the grounds of Alban House in the summer of 1956, just before Aunt Fate disappeared–one of which discusses a novel based on the history of the Albans. Then at the funeral reception who should appear but Aunt Fate. Where has she been? In Switzerland, in a private “institution” named Mercy House, which is actually a home for the criminally insane. Indeed, Aunt Fate is really Aunt Mercy, Fate’s supposedly dead twin, and she’s not just insane, she’s psychotic, locking Grace (and hunky Reverend Matthew Parker) in the church vault when they find the missing Colville manuscript. Gothic novels rarely have happy endings, but they do have satisfying ones and The Fate of Mercy Alban definitely satisfies. This novel is for fans of Victoria Holt, Daphne Du Maurier (think Jamaica Inn not Rebecca), and a good introduction to adult gothic for fans of Joan Aiken and Billingsley’s Chime (Dial, 2011).–Laura Pearle, Center for Fiction, New York City

Edward Ball’s The Inventor and the Tycoon looks at one of the most unbelievable figures in American History: Eadweard Muybridge (my favorite of his various respellings of his name).  Muybridge was hurled from a crashing stagecoach and suffered a severe head injury, which may have led to permanent brain damage–and was certainly used as proof of his insanity in his trial over the murder of his wife’s lover.  He went on to become a photographer, and after settling a bet made by the famous railroad tycoon (and University founder) Leland Stanford as to whether all four of a horse’s legs leave the ground when it runs, he became obsessed with high speed photography, and eventually setting his rapid shots in motion, thus paving the way for later innovations in movies.

Herschel Grynszpan, on the other hand, was by all accounts a very ordinary young man.  A young Pole, sent to Paris to avoid the Nazis, for some reason he took it into his head to assassinate a minor Nazi diplomat at the German Embassy, and the world has been fighting over the meaning of his actions ever since.  The Nazis immediately seized on his actions as an excuse for Kristallnacht, and many writers since have heaped the blame on him.  In the new book The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan, Jonathan Kirsch ably disproves the Kristallnacht theory (the Nazis had been planning something like it long before Grynszpan’s actions), and lays out his own theory of Grynszpan as a futile, but admirable Jewish Resistor–someone who belongs with the heroes of Doreen Rappaport’s Beyond Courage.

Next we have the first of two starred reviews for today: Mitchell Zuckoff’s Frozen in Time.  Zuckoff tells the story of the almost ridiculous set of plane crashes described above, and the heroic efforts by everyone involved to save as many of the stranded men as possible.  Meanwhile, he weaves in the story of his own involvement in a search for the remains of the Coast Guard plane.

And finally, we have a second starred review: Scott Johnson’s The Wolf and the Watchman, a memoir of a boy who discovered that his father was a CIA agent.  Though there’s plenty of covert action and espionage in this fabulous book, the real heft of it is in Johnson’s moving account of his relationship with his father and how the secrets of the CIA affected that relationship.

Together these four books offer more proof than anyone needs as to the potency and appeal of nonfiction, especially narrative nonfiction: four stories which are practically unknown, and yet are more exciting than all but the very best fictional stories out there.

BALL, Edward. The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of Moving Pictures. 464p. bibliog. index. photogs. Doubleday. Jan. 2013. Tr $29.95. ISBN 9780385525756.

Adult/High School–Ball takes a look at two very different men whose paths crossed in the late 19th century. The tycoon of the title is Leland Stanford: grocer, railroad magnate, Governor of California, U.S. Senator, founder of Stanford University. The inventor is Edward Muybridge, an inventor, a bookseller, photographer, adventurer, self-promoter, and murderer. The author weaves their stories together, moving back and forth through time and around the world. Muybridge (born Muggeridge, but fond of changing his name as he changed jobs or locations) is best known as a photographer–he took some of the earliest and most daring photographs of Yosemite–and when he met up with Stanford, he photographed Stanford’s horses in an attempt to prove that “during a gallop, horses at some point in their stride lift all four hooves off the ground.” As he refined his approach, he used multiple cameras to catch ever-smaller increments of movement and invented a device to project the results onto a screen for viewers to watch. Ball brings to life the two men, each eccentric in his own way. The murder is a fascinating sidelight–Muybridge killed his wife’s lover but was acquitted on the grounds of justifiable homicide–that gives some insight into the rough-and-tumble California life of the 1870s. Teens with an interest in history, photography, or film will be fascinated by this exploration into the relationship of money, patronage, and publicity to the creation of art.–Sarah Flowers, formerly of Santa Clara County Library, CA

KIRSCH, Jonathan. The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan. 352p. bibliog. chron. index. notes. Liveright Publishing. May. 2013. Tr $27.95. ISBN 9780871404527.

Adult/High School–On November 7, 1938,  a 17-year-old Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan entered the German Embassy in Paris and shot and killed a low-level diplomat named Ernst vom Rath. Within days, in an incredibly convoluted knot of conspiracy and counter-conspiracy theories, Grynszpan’s act was variously portrayed as the heroic action of a lone Jew outraged at Nazi atrocities; a crime of passion wrought of a failed homosexual affair; a set-up by the Nazis who supposedly wished to do away with a less-than-enthusiastic party member; and, most ominously of all, proof of the Nazi’s belief in the “International Jewish Conspiracy” and an excuse for the notorious events of Kristallnacht two days later.  Kirsch deftly cuts through these layers of interpretation to provide readers with an account of Grynszpan’s brief life–first in Hanover, then in Paris–his incarcerations in Paris and Berlin, and the vast array of meanings with which his life has been invested.  In the process, the author offers a unique perspective on the crucial period between the Nazi Party’s rise to power in 1933 and its decision to introduce the Final Solution sometime in 1941. Ultimately, Kirsch argues that Grynszpan should be seen as a tragically unsung hero of the Jewish resistance. Whether readers agree with Kirsch or not, the questions raised make this book essential reading for lovers of history, and the figure of the misunderstood adolescent hero should resonate with teens.–Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA

It is difficult to remember when I stopped reading books for kids my age and when I started reading adult books. My parents were generous in that they took me to the public library as often as I wanted to go and they never censored what I read. Their trust was very empowering for a kid who was shy and uncertain in social situations, and really, really bad at math. I excelled at reading and their trust in my ability to find my own books gave me confidence in the thing that also gave me the most pleasure: reading.

That’s probably why as a 7th grader I relished the challenge of reading The Awakening by Kate Chopin. It was my elder sister’s Summer Reading assignment that she had steadfastly ignore for almost 2 months. I couldn’t best her in many things, but I could read. From St. Louis myself, I was intrigued when I read the author’s bio in the back of the book and saw she was from St. Louis too. I remember also being drawn-in by the gauzy woman on the cover – I think she was standing in the sea. Chopin’s hot and hazy Grand Isle vacation was as unfamiliar to me as the clothes they wore and the French phrases they threw around, but I quickly became engrossed in Mrs. Pontellier’s life. At the time, the examination of marriage and feminism passed me right by. I was struck by what a jerk her husband was and how confused she seemed. It also did not seem to me that Robert had much to recommend him in the boyfriend department. But the ending. The ending was worth the sometimes boring descriptions of sumptuous furniture and confusing observations about Edna’s skills as a mother. To kill herself in that manner seemed to me, at around age 12, extraordinarily beautiful and dramatic.

I remember putting the book down and wishing I had someone to discuss it with. I wished I could ask questions about the time and place. I wished I had been assigned the book and not my sister because then I would have to talk about it in English class. There was so much I didn’t understand about how a woman like Mrs. Pontellier lived and loved, which made the ending intriguing and confusing too. I didn’t understand The Awakening as a work of literature and sometimes wondered if it even “counted”. But I do always count it because I think what we read, even if we don’t fully understand it, adds building blocks to our foundations both as readers and people. I was proud of finishing a book my sister had been putting off reading for months. I was excited to move on to the next book, even if it “wasn’t for me”. As I look back, I’m so glad I never put limits on myself as a reader, that I was and am willing to try anything. As a parent now myself, I hope I can give my child the same freedom to find books, get confused, have curiosity piqued, and find some books to answer questions or satisfy curiosity.

The Golem and the Jinni is a mash-up of Jewish and Arab folklore, historical fiction and fantasy,  new and old world sensibilities.  Helene Wecker’s debut seems destined to be among the best of the year. The publisher has certainly gone all-out. The physical package is richly gorgeous, the pages tipped in a deep, mysterious navy, with a cover painting evoking old New York.

HarperCollins has shared a series of clips from an interview of the author by Barbara Hoffert of Library Journal on the Library Love Fest youtube page.  One striking moment is the author’s central concern of the novel being the “pull between tradition, tradition toward your family expectations and obedience in that way and on the other hand self-determination, striking out on your own and making decisions about your path.”  The golem and the jinni have opposing viewpoints on these issues, so these are what “create sparks between them.”  Needless to say, teens can relate, both with this and the feeling of being a stranger in a strange land.

The author also did a great deal of research on New York at the turn of the century, and speaks about about where the research ends and the jump to the imagination begins.

Joe Hill just keeps getting better. I reviewed Horns a few years ago, and it made our 2010 best of the year list. His latest, NOS4A2, was released yesterday, and it is a masterful, thrilling read combining horror and fantasy. It has natural appeal for teen readers, not only because of its pacing and the controlled excellence of its story-telling, but also because of the main character, Vic (aka “The Brat”), and the use of Christmas as a subject of horror. What teen isn’t going to grin at that idea? Until they get to Christmasland, that is. Positively creepy!

Another reason I like this for teens is that, yes, Joe Hill is a horror writer. But this is not terrifying horror. Even those teens who shy away from the genre might be persuaded to give NOS4A2 a try. There are some really scary moments, there is plenty of dread, there is a bad guy kidnapping children, but much of the novel is about Vic’s mysterious special ability, her conflicts with her parents, and her attempts to find her way as a young adult after she leaves home. And for all its darkness, Hill has a really good time telling his story.

For example, there’s Maggie the librarian. Maggie is described as “a punk rock Keebler elf.” She wears a pair of earrings made of scrabble tiles, one F, one U. She tells Vic, “No one looks too closely at a librarian. People are afraid of going blind from the glare of so much compressed wisdom.” I think Mr. Hill is a fan. Well, except that the events of the novel pretty much do her in…

* WECKER, Helene. The Golem and the Jinni. 496p. HarperCollins. May 2013. Tr $$27.99. ISBN  9780062110831.  

Adult/High School–As a new century looms in the autumn of 1899, a most mysterious pair of immigrants appears in New York. Chava is a golem conjured as a wife for an immigrant who died en route to America and Ahmad is a jinni freed from centuries-long captivity by a tinsmith repairing an heirloom lamp. These treacherous creatures of Jewish and Arab myth possess supernatural powers that they can’t always control. The golem, an obedient servant made from earth, has prodigious physical strength and can hear the thoughts of those around her. The jinni, made from fire, appears human, yet is indifferent to human restraint. Within their respective immigrant neighborhoods, each is considered an outsider–secretive and strange, unlike any other. They meet to form an unusual and touching friendship as they navigate the challenges of a new world and battle the dabbler in the dark arts who knows their origins and yearns to use them in order to gain his own immortality. Filled with memorable characters and a backstory that spans a millennium, The Golem and the Jinni is a historical novel imbued with the kind of folk-tale sensibilities that make the fantastical seem not only plausible, but commonplace. That is to say, it is difficult to categorize. Teens will discover a book unlike any they’ve read and will readily empathize with its central characters struggling to create an identity, fit in, and belong. Fans of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus (Doubleday, 2010) and those undaunted by epic tales will be thrilled with this ingeniously conceived novel.–John Sexton, Greenburgh Public Library, NY 

* HILL, Joe. NOS4A2. 704p. Morrow. May 2013. Tr $28.99. ISBN 9780062200570. 

Adult/High School–Vic McQueen is nine years old in 1986, the first time she rides through the Shorter Way Bridge behind her family’s house in rural Massachusetts on her Raleigh Tough Burner bike to find something that has been lost. By 1991, and many trips later, Vic is desperate to find someone to tell her she’s not crazy. A ride through the Bridge takes her to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Maggie, a librarian whose scrabble tiles tell her things. This time they tell Maggie that Vic could use her bike to find The Wraith. Vic has never heard of it, but Maggie knows about the man who drives the 1938 black Rolls-Royce Wraith, license plate NOS4A2, kidnapping children and using them up. She knows all about Charlie Manx, that he takes the children to Christmasland, from which they never return. Maggie begs Vic not to pursue Manx, but years later, after a terrible fight with her mother, Vic runs away from home looking for trouble. The Shorter Way delivers her straight to Manx’s house. After a horrible confrontation during which she tries to rescue Manx’s latest young victim, she escapes. Years later, it is only to save her son that Vic confronts Charlie Manx one more time in Christmasland itself. This is Hill’s best novel yet, perfectly paced and tailor-made for teens. Its courageous, rebellious heroine devotes herself to ridding the world of a terrifying monster, using a power that slowly erodes her sanity. NOS4A2 is as much dark fantasy and thriller as horror, and the genre blend will appeal to fans of all.–Angela Carstensen, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City 

So it was with more than a little dismay that I found myself rejecting it for review for this blog.  Fortunately, our reviewer Diane Colson read the novel as well and loved it, giving me (and this blog) a great opportunity to revisit the book, in the form of a dialogue about why our opinions differed so much.  Since I’m the one fighting the tide of critical opinion, I’ll try to justify myself first.

MARK: I first heard about the novel on Barbara Hoffert’s Prepub column at Library Journal, as one of “Barbara’s Picks,” and was immediately excited to read it.  And indeed, for the first 100 pages or so, I was convinced that I had a starred review on my hands.  Most important (to me) Atkinson’s language is gorgeous, and her prose creates a wonderful counterpoint to the story as she freely intertwines characters’ memories of prior conversations or quick flashbacks into scenes so that the reader is always slightly off balance as to when each scene is taking place.  Atkinson is also an expert at weaving her ideas and themes into the most commonplace of dialogues.

The gimmick of the novel is not terribly new, but still interesting enough, especially in the early going.  But as I waded into the long central section of the novel, in which Ursula lives through World War II several times, the novel began to unravel for me.  After the first few times Ursula is reborn, she starts to get strange hints of the future that bleed through from her past lives, and begins to take some active control and try to prevent bad things that have happened.  But then abruptly, this thread is dropped, and the reader is treated to several hundred pages of two or three of Ursula’s lives stretching out into WWII (and sometimes beyond) in which she seems to have no awareness at all of anything that has happened in her past lives. 

On top of that, while I noted above Atkinson’s skill at integrating her themes into the novel, she has altogether too many ideas and themes to pursue and none of them seem to cohere.  The piece of the novel that treats the hoary old question of “would you go back and kill Hitler?”, doesn’t actually seem to pertain to the novel’s main concerns which surround more interior questions of how it is best to live and whether a person’s actions define one or vice versa.  This is all the more frustrating, because Atkinson doesn’t seem to want to grapple with the logistics of her gimmick: the “Hitler-time-travel question” is predicated on the theory that a tiny change in the past would have profound effects in the future.  But Atkinson isn’t willing to spend the necessary time and effort thinking this through as it affects Ursula, because despite all the changes in her many lives, her family seems to always stay the same, and Ursula herself seems to run into the same people over and over.  But there is no logic or consistency to how these encounters are applied.

OK, that’s enough for a first go round.  Let’s turn to Diane and see what she has to say.

DIANE: Thank you for your insights, Mark. I’m happy that we agree on one thing: Atkinson is a fabulous writer. Her sentences are sleek but well-muscled, able to conjure characters with a sentence or two, as here: “Enid had auditioned for the part of plucky young London woman somewhere around 1940 and had been playing it with gusto ever since.” (p130) I also appreciated Atkinson’s subtle shifts in mood and plot direction with each revisiting to Ursula’s past/present. That would become even more interesting, I suspect, in a second reading.

Truthfully, my initial reaction was disappointment: Is this child ever going to make it past the age of five? It took me a bit to figure out the sequence, if any, in the subsequent chapters. The chapters entitled “Armistice” gave me a better idea of Ursula’s role. Ursula seemed more like a role than a full-fleshed character for much of the book to me. She was a witness to suffering. She tried to alleviate the suffering by altering the events that seemed directly causal. In the variations of “Armistice,” Ursula’s strategies become bolder, as if the earlier attempts have made a deepening mark in her consciousness. And yet, as the final rendition of “Armistice shows,” Ursula can change only her own actions; others maintain free will and calamity is not always averted.

I believe a major theme of the book is that of the witness. Ursula is cast into situations where there she witness great sufferings, which in some lives drive her to despair. These long stretches into the future that do throw off the rhythm of the book off a bit. But it seems necessary for Ursula to witness all that she intends to prevent, to pinpoint the correct moment for interference. This is all my interpretation, of course. Ursula’s sphere of concern widens from her family to the fate of England to the fate of Germans and Jews and finally to the descendants of Jews. Because of the structure of the book, it’s hard to say with certainty that this all happened sequentially. It certainly helps provide a linear guideline for readers.

Atkinson also drops clues that Ursula is not the only person with memories of past life experiences. Ursula’s own birth is dependent upon the intervention of others. I won’t give further examples because of spoiler potential, but it enhanced my appreciation to extend the story with such possibilities. Ursula herself muses over the metaphysical possibilities in her talks with Dr. Keppet. Is life circular rather than linear? Ursula states that, “…memories are sometimes in the future.” I felt this created intriguing questions. While reincarnation and concurrent universes are not unique themes in fiction, this might be a first exposure for some teen readers. It’s a major brain jostle when presented as credibly as Atkinson does here.

MARK: Thanks for your thoughts Diane. It actually sounds as if we had fairly similar reactions to the various aspects of the novel, but that for perhaps personal reasons chose to put different emphases on these aspects.  I have to admit to being a little uncomfortable with my reactions, because usually I am a great defender of art that is bold and messy and doesn’t come together neatly, and yet that seems to be what I am criticizing her in Atkinson.  But there you go: “do I contradict myself,” etc.  I quite like your idea of Ursula as a “witness”, although I remain uncomfortable with the tensions between the themes of circularity and inevitability versus “the Hitler question.”  But perhaps that is just my own hang up about what is, in the end, a somewhat silly hypothetical.

I will just bring up one other small complaint I had, because I think it ties into my larger complaint about the (in)coherence of the structure.  Early on, it seemed that a major plot point was the seemingly random murder of a young girl (or sometimes two) in Ursula’s neighborhood.  This plot point isn’t exactly dropped, but it is certainly given far less than what seemed to be its due as the novel proceeds.  Again, I think this is a relatively minor point, but it seemed like a symptom of Atkinson’s failure (in my view) to have a complete grasp on her unwieldy plot.

I think I’ve probably rambled enough—I’ll let you have the final word on the book.

DIANE: Ursula does expound further on the possible circular nature of life near the end of the book. I’ll try to explore that part without plot spoilers, but readers may get unwanted glimpses into the conclusion (such as it is) of Ursula’s story.

Near the end of the book, Ursula says that life is not circular, but that it is like a palimpsest. I had to look that up: A palimpsest refers to writing paper that can be washed off and used again, as was done with old manuscripts. Sometimes the words of the original document seep through over time. My interpretation of this is that the vague sensations of foreboding, like the sudden grip of fear Ursula experiences before something terrible is about to happen, become stronger over time. She describes a time when she is sitting in a tea shop and is irresistibly compelled to dash out. When Ursula reaches her destination, recognized by the reader as a part of her past, her mind races:

The past seemed to leak into the present, as if there were a fault somewhere. Or was the future spilling into the past? Either way it was nightmarish, as if her inner dark landscape had become manifest. The inside became the outside. Time was out of joint, that was for certain. (p505)

Like the enigmatic Dr. Kellet, Atkinson does not commit to a definitive explanation of Ursula’s condition. I think this pulls the reader deeper into their own personal interpretations. Generally I prefer a cleaner resolution to a novel, but since there’s nothing clean in the structure here, amorphous theorizing fits well.

I’m glad you brought up the example of the girl who is murdered, because I think it is that event that brings Ursula to an awakening. The murder is something that Ursula tries to prevent in all her lives. Sometimes we only know that it didn’t happen because the girl appears as a grown-up. Then there is a time that Ursula does not prevent the crime. At the moment when she could have acted, Ursula is swept up in the most distractible of distractions – romance. Afterwards, learning of the murder, Ursula suddenly knows she is culpable. “Something was riven, broken, a lightning fork cutting open a swollen sky.” (p504) I agree that this is a significant plot point and could have been given more space in the narrative. In the end, though, I think it packed a good punch.

So there you have it: two different takes on the artistic value of a very ambitious novel.  The final question to ask (for this blog) is whether the book has teen appeal.  Here, Diane and I are in pretty close agreement.  Here’s what Diane said to me over an email:

The teens that I think would like this book are the ones who read things like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas or Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. I spoke with quite a few teens who were reading the former in anticipation of the movie last year. My feeling is that the appeal is limited, really, but that the unusual structure and somewhat mystical overcast of repeated lives may hook some teens.  It is true that Ursula is a young adult in several of the sections, but the sections where she grows older may be a bit dry for teen readers.

That pretty much sums up my feelings as well: a challenging book that some ambitious teens will love, but not one with broad appeal.  That said, for those, like Diane, who find the book to be an artistic success, I think even that limited teen appeal is worth playing up to the right teens, and I might even see this novel as a dark-horse Alex Award contender, depending on how the committee comes down on the issues Diane and I have been discussing.  But we’d love to hear from readers if anyone has yet another take on the book or on its potential teen appeal.