This is a Cybils book, but the opinion expressed in this review is just mine, and not the committee's.
It opens with Elena in a hospital in Germany, not sure why her chest hurts so much. She's then medically evacuated to the US, to be treated for anorexia. She next years are a tangle in and out of treatment as everyone watches Elena slip away while she insists she's fine.
This is co-written with her mother, who is a novelist, and it was that story-telling sensibility. Part of that is we are in Elena's head for the entire time, and not Elena-looking-back, but Elena-then, so... holy unreliable narrator Batman. It's a pretty warped (albeit fascinating) perspective.
One thing I would have liked is something on what was "really" happening during all of this, because Elena's POV is so divorced from reality. (of course, I could just read her mother's memoir of the same time, Hope and Other Luxuries: A Mother's Life with a Daughter's Anorexia)
It's painful and hard to read, but also hard to put down.
Book Provided by... my local library
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By: Jennie,
on 10/19/2015
Blog: Biblio File (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: YA, Cybils, memoir, Nonfiction, Clare B. Dunkle, Elena Dunkle, Add a tag
By: Jennie,
on 12/2/2010
Blog: Biblio File (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Clare B. Dunkle, YA, Fiction, Wuthering Heights, Add a tag
The dead hold no terrors for me. I have watched by the beds of those who have passed on, comforted by their sorrowless repose. But this little maid was a ghastly thing, all the more horrible because she stood before me. It wasn't the palid hue of her grimy face that shocked me, or her little gray hands and feet. It was the holes where her eyes should have been, great round sockets of shadow.
The dead girl opened her lips as if she meant to speak. Her mouth was another black pit like the black pits of her eyes. She was nothing but a hollowed-out skin plumped up with shadow. I had the horrible idea that if I were to scratch her, she would split open, and the darkness within her would come pouring out. p. 24
This is a prequel to Wuthering Heights-- the story of where Heathcliff was before.
But, you really don't need to know anything about Wuthering Heights to love this book. I don't even like Wuthering Heights, but I love this book.
The story does little to explain why Heathcliff is the way he is-- he is already that way before this tale begins. But, we have a manor that is not passed down through generations. Seldom House requires a family that is related by death instead of birth. Tabitha is brought from the orphanage to be the maid for the new master. Once there, she is haunted by the ghosts of the maids that have gone before, cold figures with no eyes that slip into her bed at night.
After meeting the new young master, more ghosts appear and haunt them. Tabitha knows something is very not right with the house and the village, but doesn't know how to fix it or what to do.
It's spooky and tense and terrifying in all the right ways. The entire story is filled with an atmosphere for foreboding and doom, and its length (146 pages) give it a sparseness that heightens the mystery and mood.
If it were a movie, it'd be the kind where you throw your hands over your eyes because you can't bear to watch, but you're still peeking through your fingers, because you can't look away.
Totally awesome.
Book Provided by... my local library
Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.
