Both of Me

October 15, 2014
A girl with a mysterious past embarks on a journey across America to save a friend and find herself. Haunted by a family tragedy she feels responsible for, 18-year-old Clara has traveled the world but can't leave her past behind. This seems especially true when, on a flight to Minneapolis, she sits next to "an interesting bloke" named Elias Phinn, who seems to know her life, including details of the tragedy-her Great Undoing-she has never revealed to anyone. Clara follows Elias to his home, an inn "populated with the mad and deranged." It turns out that Elias is suffering from dissociative identity disorder: There are two Eliases, the "real," lucid one and the mentally ill one inhabiting an imaginary world that he calls Salem-and the paranoid one seems to be taking over, unless "normal" Elias can figure out how to destroy the evil that comes from a mysterious "Keeper" at a lighthouse. Friesen's writing is at times stunning, neatly adept at capturing the "terror of loose footing" that affects both Elias and Clara and creating an unease in readers as well. The sheer weirdness of Elias' alternative world will intrigue readers, and after Elias and Clara's phantasmagoric road trip following stars and myths, those readers will appreciate a grizzled old Mainer's matter-of-fact story that neatly explains everything. A haunting tale for teens with a taste for the bizarre. (Fiction. 14-18)

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from December 15, 2014
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Believing she caused a family tragedy (aka her Great Undoing), 18-year-old Clara bolted from her London home. She has since been traveling the world using her father's journal as a guide. On a flight to Minneapolis, she meets Elias, who eerily seems to know everything about her. Discovering that their bags were switched, she locates his home and discovers two Eliases. He suffers from DIDdisassociative identity disorderand swings from sweet Elias to the Other One, who lives in the imaginary world of Salem. Troubled by her past and about Elias' condition, Clara has as much difficulty finding her footing as Elias does recovering his lost spans of time. Nevertheless, determined to help good Elias overcome the Other One, Clara takes him on a journey to find and destroy a mysterious being Elias calls the Keeper. They follow the stars, interpret myths, and utilize Clara's journal only to end up at a lighthouse on the coast of Maine, where they meet someone who knows the truth. Part Alice in Wonderland, part role-playing game, and all weird road-trip adventure, Friesen's storytelling is laser-beam sharp, making the characters (and the readers) teeter as if on a warped balance beam. The concept of DID will fascinate readers as will the semi-otherworldly adventure.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)