Thursday, September 2, 2010

41 - Light Beneath Ferns

Finished Light Beneath Ferns by Anne Spollen.

I think this is one of those books that would be really awesome if you were in the target age group, but is a little obvious if you are not.

Still, her writing style is appealing* and the story is a little creepy.

Elizah and her mom have just moved to a small New England town (her father is on the run after embezzling some money because of a gambling addiction). Elizah is antisocial (antisocial to the point of making me look like someone who loves to be around people--seriously, she hates people way, WAY more than I do) and is not having much fun in the new town.

One day, she finds a jawbone (did I mention that their new house is in a cemetery? It is) and shortly thereafter, a weird boy named Nathaniel appears. He talks strangely and tells her not to tell anyone about seeing him. Hmm. I wonder what Nathaniel's story is...

Anyway. While most people could probably figure out what's up with Nathaniel, I think most teens (maybe we'll say advanced 10-year-olds to maybe 13-year-olds) would really like this book.

And even though I called everything in this book (and I was right), I still kept reading.

* = Here's part of the first chapter to back me up.

"This story does not teach a lesson. It does not explain gravity or the pack rituals of wolves or how the sun will explode one day and leave us all inside a gray welt of ice and famine. It will not make you popular or get you invitations to parties, if you are after that sort of thing. If death and the dead make you afraid, you better just stop reading and go take a nap. If bones scare you, you cannot read this book. At all. Because, really, things started happening just a little after I found that bone.

You should also know that this story doesn't begin at the beginning. Really, nothing does. And don't believe people who tell you that's how the world works. My story goes sideways, like all stories. I pick the parts that I want to be the beginning, the middle and the end because nothing ever happens in order; we just pretend it does. Everything happens more like a rainstorm with wind and lightning and confusion happening at once, and none of it is divided into sections.

I am not going to tell you a lot about me in the beginning like other girl narrators because I am nothing like other girl narrators. If you were smart enough to find this book, and find me, you can figure out how I am without being told. But I will tell you what I am not.

I don't live on a prairie or in the American West or before, during, or after any war that you would find in a history book. I don't like flowers, or save small animals; I don't have whimiscal adventures that end neatly with a moral. I don't locate lost children. In fact, I'm not even fond of small children. I don't solve mysteries or fix what's broken. I don't scare easily, but I am not noble in the least. Usually, when stuff scares me, I avoid it. I also don't believe in courage. I think it is a radically misunderstood, applauded form of suicide. And I don't wish I lived anywhere else, even though we live on the edge of a graveyard."

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