Cruel Beautiful World

October 31, 2016
In this suspenseful novel by Leavitt (Pictures of You), impulsive 16-year-old Lucy runs away with her high school English teacher, William, "the coolest teacher on the planet." It's 1969, and Lucy is itching to get away from the working-class suburb of Boston where she lives with her high-achieving older sister, Charlotte, and their elderly guardian, Iris. William, cautioning her that they'll both be in danger if they're caught, takes her to live in an isolated house in rural Pennsylvania, from which he goes out to teach at a progressive elementary school, leaving her to do housework, feed the chickens, write in her journal, and secretly take a job at a farm stand run by grieving young widower Patrick. Leavitt alternates among the points of view of Lucy, Charlotte, Iris, and Patrick. The first half of the novel is a model of restrained and matter-of-fact horror: Lucy has no idea how much danger she is in, but the reader does. Chapters from the points of view of Charlotte and Iris, who face more ordinary challenges, provide realistic respite from the drama. The second half of the novel loses momentum. Leavitt's evident determination to keep the plot tidy and tie up loose ends detracts from the initial willingness to confront ambiguity that makes the first half so bold.

The new novel from an established chronicler of family crises explores secrets and bonds connecting two orphaned sisters and the "very distantly related" woman who raised them.Charlotte Gold is the serious older sibling, characterized by shyness and smarts; Lucy is 18 months younger, less academic but prettier and a live wire. Orphaned when Lucy is 5, the sisters find a new home in Waltham, Massachusetts, with Iris, who they think is their aunt though in fact she's their half sister. Leavitt's (Family, 2014, etc.) 11th novel reconfigures some themes familiar from her recent work--parenting, disappearance, death--into a solid, sympathetic tale with few surprises except when it strays into thriller territory. Despite differing natures, all three women share the experience of isolation--Charlotte when she takes up her scholarship to Brandeis only to find herself lonely and anxious; Lucy when she absconds at age 16 with a teacher, William, and settles into a numbingly solitary routine in a remote corner of Pennsylvania; and Iris in the early days of her impulsive marriage to a kindly soldier with a secret. They all take turns in the spotlight, but it's Charlotte who eventually comes to the fore as she explores the enigma of her sister's actions, connecting in the process with Patrick, Lucy's only friend in Pennsylvania and a man with a "past." Leavitt does a confident, efficient job of assembling her characters and moving them along their trajectories, yet there's a sense of mechanical accomplishment to it all. Her real fascination is with sifting inner landscapes, tracking the suffering and fulfillment of her ensemble. Everything else (including the early 1970s setting) reads like a means to an end. A capable, readable, empathetic novel, yet its impact is minimal. COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2017

Sixteen-year-old Lucy is drifting through her sophomore year of high school when her handsome English teacher takes an interest in her writing-and then in her. After Lucy and her teacher run off together, the teen's older sister, Charlotte, is devastated, unsure whether to pursue her college plans or stay with their adoptive mother, Iris, in the house Lucy left behind. It's 1969, a time when teenage girls were fleeing their conventional lives in search of peace and love. But Lucy's idyllic escape leads only to a lonely farmhouse where her older lover intends to keep her hidden until she turns 18. Lucy's narrative alternates with those of Charlotte and Iris, each of them grappling with sexuality, personal accomplishment, and the need to belong. Their individual tales are surprising, revealing the secret depths of each woman's interior life as well as characters' fledgling attempts to truly know one another. Leavitt ( Is This Tomorrow; Girls in Trouble ) delivers another deeply introspective coming-of-age tale. VERDICT For readers hooked on novels set in the 1960s.-Diane Colson, City College, Gainesville, FL

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June 1, 2016
After their parents died, Lucy and Charlotte faced the world on their own, and Charlotte became very protective of her little sister. When Lucy runs away with her high-school teacher, Charlotte feels betrayed and resentful of the burden of responsibility she has felt for Lucy through their adolescence. After tragedy strikes, she will once more bear the burden to find out the truth about what has happened to Lucy. The novel starts in 1969, as the era of peace and free love is being ushered out amid Vietnam, Kent State, and the Manson murders. Leavitt skillfully weaves these events into the fabric of the story, and as an age of innocence is left behind, so, too, do the sisters find their lives unraveling into something darker and sadder than ever expected. Themes of love, romantic and familial, reflect the title. Although the plot is reminiscent of Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply (2009), the tone and coming-of-age themes are more likely to attract readers of Tayari Jones' Silver Sparrow (2011) or Carol Rifka Brunt's Tell the Wolves I'm Home (2012).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

May 15, 2016

A columnist for the Boston Globe, a book reviewer for People, and the author of New York Times best sellers like Is This Tomorrow, Leavitt makes churning suspense of a 16-year-old runaway's discovery that living in 1969 rural Pennsylvania with an older man is not such a blessed escape.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2016

It's 1969, and 16-year-old Lucy loves dangly earrings, hippie bell-bottoms, and Love's Baby Soft shampoo for her golden curls. But the naive sophomore hates high school with a passion. Her charismatic, hip English teacher William makes it bearable, seeing potential in her creative writing and making her feel special. They become intimate, and Lucy is titillated by sneaking around. When his antiestablishment, antiwar stance runs afoul of the school administration, William takes a job at an alternative school in rural Pennsylvania, and Lucy runs off with him. Discovering Lucy's farewell note, Iris, her elderly adoptive mother, and Lucy's straitlaced older sister, Charlotte, immediately call the police, only to be met with indifference. Leavitt's (Is This Tomorrow; Pictures of You) 12th novel tracks Lucy's experience, from her immediate misgivings upon seeing the remote, dilapidated house that William rented, to her loneliness, frustration, and growing awareness of William's increasing paranoia, all chronicled in her journal. From Charlotte's perspective, we see the terrible impact Lucy's disappearance has on her and her mother. VERDICT Overall, this is a compelling exploration of love and loyalty, which could have been made perfect with a shade more Vietnam-era context. [See Prepub Alert, 4/25/16; eight-city tour; library marketing.]--Christine Perkins, Whatcom Cty. Lib. Syst., Bellingham, WA

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.