Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

Andi is in many ways a poor little rich girl, in her senior year at St Anselm's prestigious expensive school in Brooklyn, New York. She is largely ignored by her father with his new girlfriend, a brilliant geneticist in pursuit of his dream of unlocking the genome. But she is engulfed in an ocean of depression and grief, tortured by her inability to save her little brother Truman and struggling to provide for her equally stricken artist mother, who does little but paint pictures of her lost son. Andi is failing at school, well, in all areas but music. It is only here that she feels understood. Her music teacher Nathan who does not tell her to get over her grief, but shows her how to express it through her exquisite guitar playing.

When Andi's father arrives at the house he is horrified and takes action. He puts Andi's mother in hospital and takes Andi with him to Paris to write the outline for her thesis on Amande Malherbeau, a French composer who wrote his music to the backdrop of Revolutionary France. Her father has been engaged by his friend G to undertake the examination of a heart thought to be that of the lost King of France, Louis XVII, son of the guillotined Louis XVI. Andi's father leaves her at G's house, a theatre which G is transforming into a museum of the Revolution.

Andi is at first determined to return to her mother and strikes a deal with her father to have the outline finished in time to return to her within a week, but then she finds the diary of Alexandrine and is drawn back to Revolutionary France. And when she is busking and meets Jules and Virgil, boys from the impoverished banlieue of Clichy, something begins to reach through the haze of drugs and grief that cloak her and draw her back to life.

Extremely good on the sense of being a teenager and struggling with such painful issues at a time when emotions are turbulent enough, but I just felt that at times the plot was a little obvious and forced. Still powerful enough to keep me reading through the night, and very well informed, the sections on both modern day but especially Revolutionary France are evocative and detailed.

Wonder Struck by Brian Selznick

It would be enough for this to be a wonderful narrative, but Selznick has done it again, creating something even more wonderful than his The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

In 1977 Ben, a young boy dreams of wolves and grieves for his recently dead mother. Unable to sleep he wanders from his aunt and uncle's lodge in the woods on the edge of Gunflint Lake, Minnesota, the short distance to his former home and finds a mysterious book about the first kinds of museums known as Cabinets of Wonders and telephone number. Lightning strikes as he tries to dial the number and he is deafened.

In 1927 Rose, a deaf girl of a similar age to Ben, gazes across the river at Manhattan and runs away to find the beautiful silent movie star Lillian Mayhew and seeks shelter in the company of her brother Walter, creator of an entire room of Wonders.

This story would be in and of itself delicately and achingly rendered, but Selznick's combination of text with stunning pencil drawings is unique, not a comic but not simply illustrations either, the drawings having a narrative value of their own like a comic without the speech bubbles. Just as Ben and Rose's stories speak to each other across 5 decades the pictures and words are in a dialogue creating something truly spellbinding.

Lorelei's Secret by Carolyn Parkhurst


Paul's beloved wife Lexy is found dead having fallen from the branches of the great apple tree in their back garden.  The only witness is her Rhodesian Ridgeback Lorelei.  Paul, a university professor in linguistics, is desperate to know why.  Did she slip and fall, did she commit suicide.  As Paul delves further into his memories of his time with the woman who was everything to him and further into a kind of madness trying to enable Lorelei to tell him what happened he maps beautifully the torments of the shining artistic soul who was the love of his life.

One of few non thriller / action / crime books which has gripped and held me from the first page to the last, poignant, and deeply comforting in that Lexy's feelings of inadequacy, being lost and fearing her own self were a mirror to my own 3am reflections on my self.

My Name is Mina by David Almond

In this brilliantly crafted book we immersed in the mind of Mina, the kooky girl who befriends Michael in Skellig and shares with him his discovery of the strange and wonderful fallen angel. My Name is Mina is Mina's diary and contains her thoughts about being a misfit, unable to fit in at school and eventually home schooled, coming to terms with the death of her father and the grief of her mother as well as herself, and her love of words. Deeply inspiring and hopeful that even in pain and loss there is learning and that it's okay not to fit, the very format of this book does not fit, typeface digressing into handwriting, pages of doodles and ideas for writing diaries that would help anyone with something to express.

The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway

How can you heart keep beating when the man you love is dead, a man who you're not even permitted to grieve for because although he had left his wife it is she who claims his body and is named at the funeral. This is the story of the ironically named Joy 'lasting' this ordeal after her lover drowns, her complete breakdown in the face of the shattering of her world consigning her to a psychiatric ward, and the men and women who love her and despite her continue to reach her. Reveals the true horror of grief and the dangers of wrapping a life around a single person. Deeply moving, Galloway traces a narrative through a blasted emotional landscape with skill and feeling.

Breathe: A Ghost Story by Cliff McNeish

Enthralling story, on the one hand a supernatural thriller about ghosts unnaturally trapped in the new home of a young boy who has just lost his father, but also about recovery from grief and parallels between the suffocation of loss, paranormal experience and asthma. Skilfully written and moving

Deeper Than Blue by Jill Hucklesby

Amy is thirteen and a swimmer, the book opens with a vivid breakthtaking passage of her taking the county record from another swimmer she has admired and tried to live up to. A spectator drops their glasses and the shattered pieces fall into the pool, meaning the pool has to be drained and Amy, for the first time in years, doesn't have to go to training so she goes shopping with her best friend Sophie but a tragic set of events leaves Amy grieving and damaged. Coming back from deeper than blue is a long road for Amy, accompanied by the adorably quioxitc Harry, her family's move to a new life in Brighton and her dog. Beautifully written and plotted, deeply moving and intelligent, a real pleasure to read.

Where Mermaids Sing by Brian Keaney

I had a real problem with teenage reading that week didn't I. Keaney's book is brilliant but it doesn't have a good ending, and that's my problem not his.

AZ: "Jasmine, Alice and Phoebe. As friends they were inseparable, but when friendship turns to rivalry and distrust, they begin to drift apart. Then tragedy strikes - and Alice knows life can never be the same again."

The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve

An intensely beautiful book that reassures me that I've found another author who resonates with my soul. AZ: "Marriage to a pilot has taught Kathryn to be ready for emergencies, but nothing prepared her for the news of her husband's fatal crash. Struggling through her grief, she confronts disturbing rumours and becomes torn between her impulse to protect her husband's memory and her desire for the truth."