Book review: Between by Jessica Warman
Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: Walker Childrens (August 2, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0802721826
ISBN-13: 978-0802721822
Product Dimensions: 8 x 6 x 2 inches
Thanks to a very far in advance copy from the author, I had the pleasure of spending my Memorial Day weekend engrossed in the limbo between life and death of Elizabeth Valchar in Warman's upcoming novel Between.
Elizabeth Valchar's life seemed perfect. Of course, she had a few challenges like her mother dying when she was 9, but she got a new mom and a sister out of it, and since then, everything has fallen into place. At least, that's how she thinks of it when she wakes up the morning after her 18th birthday party and sees her own corpse floating in the water next to the boat.
With the help of her grumpy guide, Alex, another teenager who recently passed away in their small town of Noank, CT, Elizabeth learns how to navigate through the present and her past to figure out what she needs to face in order to move on. Nothing can prepare her or Alex for what they discover, and I won't leak any details to you because I want you to read the book ;-)
As always, Jessica Warman builds a believable world within the twisted social hierarchy of high school students. Her main character, Elizabeth Valchar, has a lot of qualities that are easy to hate, but Warman manages to make her sympathetic in spite of some of the horrible things she has done.
Fans of her previous books as well as the dark and twisted tales of Gail Giles and Robert Cormier will find it hard to put this one down and go to sleep.