June 8, 2015
A teen seeking to forge her own identity meets an apocalyptic cult in LaPlante’s (Turn of Mind) psychological thriller, a thought-provoking bildungsroman set in the ironically named Sunnyvale, Calif. Bright but troubled 16-year-old Anna Franklin is profoundly lonely and depressed when she meets her new neighbors, the Goldschmidts, whose son, Lars, is her classmate at school. The Goldschmidts belong to a group preparing for the violent end times they believe are rapidly approaching. Their ideology gives Anna the sense of purpose she lacks, and their admiration for the strange visions she has begun having offers a sense of belonging that her own preoccupied, conflict-ridden family can’t provide. As her inflexible new beliefs alienate her from her parents and peers, a tragic accident forces her to begin questioning her convictions, as well as her closeness to Lars and his fellow believers. But her deepening bonds with Jim Fulson, a young man scarred by his own troubled adolescence, and the enigmatic chemistry teacher Clara Thadeous, offer no easy solutions; ultimately, Anna must embrace the risks of charting her own course. LaPlante’s rich themes of faith and doubt, vision and blindness, emerge compellingly as the early parts of the story build. Though the second half is less focused and strains credibility, Anna’s dramatic journey toward authentic selfhood raises interesting questions. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenburg Agency.
June 1, 2015
Quirky mystery writer LaPlante (Circle of Wives, 2014, etc.) switches things up in her latest tale, a spin on teen dystopian fiction with a decidedly grown-up kick. Teenage Anna, the only child of cheerful iconoclasts (mom tunes grand pianos for a living, while dad maps earthquakes), is spiraling into a deep funk, unable to blend in with her Silicon Valley peers or, lately, lift limbs out of bed. Except at rare moments-with her worried parents; her mean but interesting chemistry teacher, Ms. Thadeous; and her former protector from childhood, Jim (college football star, now living in exile in his parents' rec room)-she feels "as receptive to human interaction as a slab of meat." The therapist she's dragged to prescribes meds but frames Anna's outsider mentality as "a simple misalignment with her herd" and urges her to "Hunt with the pack....Even if it's just an act at first." Anna's mood grows still bleaker, until she meets Lars, the geeky but oddly cocky son of the new family next door. An instant outcast at school, Lars is unfazed by taunts and furtive pummeling. When he spills his secret to Anna-that he and his family are working to expedite certain Biblical prophecies-he really gets her attention. "We could use you," he tells her. That she doesn't scoff at this invitation is a given-and it's not all new-moon madness. As she tells her USGS-tracking dad, "You yourself say we don't have much longer on this planet....Might we not be talking about the same things in different ways?" She doesn't share that she's signed up to join other true believers at a remote ranch. Her journey there will settle the question once and for all but not before she endures a seismic event close to home. With a satirist's eye and fleet, insightful prose, LaPlante delivers gratifying if somewhat foreseeable twists in one girl's search for salvation.
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July 1, 2015
Anna has always had trouble fitting in. When she is 16, she falls into a deep depression, and she suffers from seizures as well. Her fragility makes her responsive to the scary doomsday convictions of the new next-door neighbors, the Goldshmidts, whose son, Lars, is also in his teens. Anna comes to believe that she has a special role to play in the upcoming Tribulation. But she is also drawn to Jim, a somewhat older man who, despite problems of his own, provides Anna with a link to rationality, though one that is complicated by his affair with Ms. Thadeous, the high-school chemistry teacher. Following a sudden and devastating loss, Anna, Lars, Jim, and Ms. Thadeous leave California and embark on a road trip across the West, each having his or her own reasons to get away and get somewhere else. There is perhaps too much going on here, but LaPlante has a talent for depicting family dynamics and for making the environments her characters inhabit reflect their inner states. Libraries where her well-received Turn of Mind (2011) was popular will want to consider this.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)
July 1, 2015
Nature and nurture both have let teenager Anna Franklin down. Biology makes her prone to depression and visions. Well-intentioned but emotionally immature parents fascinate and repel her, ultimately harming more than they help. Rudderless and spiraling into despair, Anna is befriended by two young men: Lars, a new neighbor and classmate, connects her to his family's apocalyptic sect and Jim, a twentysomething living in his family's basement, who has his own demons. There are no safe havens and few clues as to whom she can trust. As with LaPlante's previous novels (Turn of Mind; A Circle of Wives), the push and pull of relationships and complexity of unstable personalities create a compelling read. Tension and suspense are heightened through short chapters, terse matter-of-fact prose, and what is left unsaid. VERDICT Anna's contradictions--her vulnerability and her tendency for making dangerous choices--make her hard to love and her story hard to put down. [See Prepub Alert, 2/23/15.]--Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll. Lib., NC
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 15, 2015
LaPlante debuted with the New York Times best-selling Turn of Mind, then followed up with the LibraryReads and Indie Next pick A Circle of Wives. Her new work is less psychological thriller than intense psychological study. When do-it-her-way teenager Anna plunges into a depression, she is attracted to the new boy next door and his family's extremist religious faith. Can she be rescued from what starts to look really dangerous?
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.