The Turning Book 1

May 3, 2010
Reading Ellis’s prose is like listening to a Robin Williams monologue—it’s high energy and high anxiety—with a Southern twist. This is the voice of Mary Richards, a 16-year-old from Alabama, who has been adopted into a wealthy New York City family. Mary remembers enough of her troubled past to appreciate her good fortune, but has lost any sense of the strangeness of her privileged bubble. Preoccupied with friends’ teasing, rivalry with her African-American sister (also an adoptee), and a crush on her classmate, Nick, she feels like an ordinary teenager. Until, that is, she begins to transform into a cat. Then the edgy patter turns hallucinogenic, erotic, and murderous. Imaginatively, it’s impressive: an urban fantasy with original and consistent world-building, which bodes well for later books in the Turning series. Between frequent references to 1980s pop culture and the finer points of life on the Upper East Side and the book’s more gruesome (though not gratuitous) moments, Ellis seems to be writing for an older audience—and, for them, she is writing very well. Ages 12–up.

May 15, 2010
Grades 8-11 Theres a new supernatural kid crowding in with the recent surge of teen vampires, fallen angels, and zombies, and this time, she is just as likely to crave milk as blood. The signs that 16-year-old Mary is becoming something not altogether human begin at her elite Manhattan school, where she falls asleep and begins to purr. At home, she finds herself licking spilled milk from the floor and considering a rodent snack before orange fur begins to sprout from her legs. Only dreamy classmate Nick can explain: Mary is experiencing her first turning, during which she shape-shifts into feline form. This first act in a proposed series sets up the fantastical premise, which includes a violent war between New York Citys domestic and stray cats. Shape-shifting involves clothes shedding, and there is an undercurrent of chaste eroticism that Twilight series fans will recognize. A few characters, such as Nicks Greek grandparents, slip into caricature, but the blend of contemporary realism and fantasy, romance, humor, and adrenaline-charged action is sure to hook an eager teen audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)