by Valentine, Jenny.
Publishers Weekly
: Starred Review. It's difficult to pinpoint just what makes this British debut so quietly disturbing yet so compulsively readable. Valentine simultaneously attempts a detective caper, a commentary on euthanasia and a youth's pithy send up of an unfair world—and succeeds. Despite its oddball plot, in which 15-year-old Lucas inadvertently stumbles upon an abandoned urn of ashes in a cab depot and, in an uncanny twist of fate, unearths the truth about his father, who disappeared five years earlier, the novel raises serious questions about death even as it exposes the entrails of a broken family. Even with the heavy subject matter, Valentine gives humor free reign, as Lucas mouths off in cheeky British twang about his annoying sister, his lack of friends and his sense that he is the only one still holding a torch for his father. Ages 14–up. A memorable new voice. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms
School Library Journal
: Starred Review. Gr 8–11—Sixteen-year-old Lucas idealizes his father, Pete, who disappeared when the boy was six. Mum says they were abandoned, although Lucas makes excuses for his dad. On entering a minicab office one day, he finds himself drawn to an urn containing the ashes of a woman named Violet, which someone left in a cab years before. Part mystery, part magical realism, part story of personal growth, and in large part simply about a funny teenager making light of his and his family's pain, this short novel is engaging from start to finish. It feels like Frank Cottrell Boyce's Framed (2006) or Millions (2004, both HarperCollins) for a slightly older crowd—especially in the all-too-human quirky family members and their willingness to employ creative methods to secure their ends as well as in the contemporary middle-class London setting. Throughout, Lucas's tongue-in-cheek lists (e.g., "good reasons to make friends with a dead lady in an urn") relieve the seriousness of his family's situation and his relatively mature revelations about them and himself. Lucas steadily unravels the two mysteries—the deceased Violet and the missing Pete—and leaves readers with a highly satisfying surprise inside the final knot. Neither too heavy nor too fluffy.—Rhona Campbell, Washington, DC Public Library Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms
|
