November 10, 2014
Lake returns to the mix of reality and fantasy he used to great success in his Printz-winning In Darkness for this story narrated by Shelby Cooper, a deaf teen whose life is upended when she is struck by an out-of-control Humvee in Scottsdale, Ariz. Shelby’s injuries aren’t life-threatening, but her mother panics, spiriting her away for a Thelma and Louise–style road trip to the Grand Canyon. Heretofore, Shaylene Cooper kept Shelby on a short leash, but Shelby soon learns that their cloistered existence had a darker genesis than maternal overprotectiveness. What Shelby discovers about her past is so unsettling that she retreats into an allegorical landscape known as the Dreaming. In this alternate world, drawn from Native American mythologies, Shelby is befriended by Coyote and told she is on a quest to kill the Crone and save a child whose cries she has heard for years in a recurring nightmare. These fantasy sequences are not as taut or thrilling as the real-world chapters, but Shelby is highly sympathetic, and readers will stick with her as she figures out who she can trust. Ages 14–up. Agent: Caradoc King, United Agents.
November 15, 2014
Over a period of eight days, 17-year-old Shelby's life is forever changed.Home-schooled in Scottsdale, Arizona, the two things Shelby's sure of are that her father is dead and that the world is a dangerous place. Her friend, Mark, tells her that "[t]hings are...starting to happen" right before she's struck by a car, fracturing her foot. As she passes out, a coyote seems to give her a cryptic message about lies and a hard truth. From then on, Shelby's life quickly unravels. Her once-shy mother's behavior becomes erratic as she drives Shelby to Flagstaff and tells her that her father, not dead after all, may be chasing them. When Shelby closes her eyes, she finds herself in the Dreaming, where Mark is the trickster Coyote and where her recurring dream of a crying child in need of rescue takes on urgency. Counting down the days toward a life-altering revelation, Shelby steps in and out of the Dreaming, its fairy-tale castles, crones and changelings blended with the sacred Eagle and Coyote of Navajo legend. Discerning readers might pick up carefully planted indications that Shelby is deaf early on. The suspenseful, complicated story slowly spins out clues to Shelby's life that have been hidden from her for years. A fine exploration of the power of story itself to heal the unconscious from scars physical and emotional. (Fiction. 13-17)
COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Starred review from December 1, 2014
Gr 9 Up-"I have no words to describe how I am feeling-it's like grief, maybe, but grief for myself. I was living my life, and then something came along and killed me, erased me." Seventeen-year-old Shelby Jane Cooper's world begins to come apart after she is hit by a car in Scottsdale, AZ. Her overprotective mother takes them on the run, and a coyote (who used to be a boy) begins to bring her into the Dreaming, a magical place where Shelby is no longer deaf and the animal inhabitants believe she can save them from an evil witch. What's real, this world or the Dreaming? What are the "two lies" that Coyote warns Shelby about? What is the one truth? Lake's new novel is perplexing and disorienting, full of the rich language and heady epiphanies readers have come to expect from the Printz-award winning author of In Darkness (Bloomsbury, 2012). The plot draws on Native American mythology and the haunting vastness of the Southwest landscape. The battles between elks and wolves, narrow escapes from authorities, and the looming mystery (Who is Shelby?) will make teens want to tear through the pages. Encourage them to temper this impulse lest they miss a single one of Shelby's heartrending revelations that happen on her journey to save the Dreaming and herself.-Chelsey Philpot, Boston University
Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 1, 2015
Who is Shelby Jane Cooper? As she tells it, she's a seventeen-year girl who lives with her overprotective mother in Scottsdale, Arizona. She's homeschooled, and most often goes out only to the batting cages and the library. But that's not who Shelby Jane Cooper really is, and it takes a car accident for her to begin to separate the truth from the lies. Her mother whisks her away from the hospital for a surprise road trip and with the revelation that her father isn't really dead after all. A few chapters later, Shelby has her own reveal -- "So, yes, BTW, I'm deaf" -- a fact cleverly disguised to this point by Lake's use of italics, rather than quotation marks, to indicate dialogue. And then there's "the Dreaming," an alternate reality tinged with magical realism, fairy tales, and American Indian mythology, where Shelby lives when she's not awake. The Dreaming mirrors the real world and helps Shelby process her newfound knowledge about her family. While the Dreaming scenes serve as welcome relief from the fraught family dynamics, they can also hamper the pace of the novel. Nevertheless, this hallucinatory, kaleidoscopic mix of plot, characters, and setting is eminently discussable for its nuanced themes. After winning the Printz Award for his first novel, In Darkness (rev. 3/12), Lake continues to practice his craft at a high level. jonathan hunt
(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)