The Grief Keeper

April 29, 2019
Villasante’s engrossing debut about two Salvadoran sisters recently arrived in the U.S. opens with plenty of tension: 17-year-old Marisol is being interviewed about the siblings’ request for asylum. They fled because their father disappeared, their brother was murdered by a fellow gang member, and both Marisol’s and 12-year-old Gabi’s lives were threatened, as well as their mother’s. Eventually, Marisol is offered the opportunity for asylum through participation in an ethically questionable medical trial to help relieve PTSD—by receiving and holding another person’s grief. The grief she takes on belongs to teenage Rey, who is devastated after her twin brother’s death, and to whom Marisol is immediately attracted. The girls bond over an American soap opera that Marisol loved to watch in El Salvador, but as Marisol absorbs Rey’s grief, both the experiment and their relationship unfold in unexpected ways. Though Marisol doesn’t initially reveal that others’ homophobia was a key reason for her persecution in El Salvador, her sexual identity gradually becomes clear to readers, and a closing flashback reveals a deeper truth behind the sisters’ flight. Villasante builds her novel about undocumented immigrants into a suspenseful story with credible relationships, satisfying character development, and elements of science fiction. Ages 12–up. Agent: Barbara Poelle, the Irene Goodman Agency.

Ana Osorio narrates this timely audiobook about the immigrant experience with dashes of teen romance and science fiction. Marisol and her younger sister, Gabi, fled El Salvador for the U.S. after their brother became embroiled in gang violence. Indranie, a U.S. government employee and an immigrant herself, says she will work on getting the girls asylum if Marisol agrees to act as a test subject in a grief-transference experiment. They move in with Rey, the girl whose grief will be transferred to Marisol. As Marisol spends time with Rey to assist with the experiment, a romance begins to develop between the two girls. Osorio, a native Spanish speaker, is equally convincing voicing Marisol and Gabi's Salvadoran accents, Rey's American accent and teenage-girl intonations, and Indranie's Indian accent. S.P. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine