The Guy, the Girl, the Artist and His Ex

January 2, 2017
The 1986 theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman from the National Gallery in Melbourne, Australia, has unforeseen consequences for Williams’s (Beatle Meets Destiny) four narrators, whose stories overlap and culminate in a shocking event. Guy is an unmotivated high school senior throwing the party of the year. Seventeen-year-old Rafi is disciplined and driven, responsible for a mentally ill mother mourning the death of her three-year-old son. Luke, 27, is an antiestablishment rising art star with a young son he rarely sees. And Penny, Luke’s ex, is a 23-year-old college graduate navigating single motherhood. An intimate third-person narrative shifts among all four, providing perspective and insight into each of them and their relationships as the ripple effects of the theft grow. Rafi and Penny are perhaps the most compelling characters: Rafi must confront her own choices and difficult truths about her mother, while Penny fully comes into her own, taking charge of her and her son’s futures. Guy and Luke, by contrast, are largely passive and unchanged by events. Quiet but layered, Williams’s story lingers. Ages 13–up.

January 15, 2017
The lives of four young people intersect in unexpected ways as the result of a spectacular art heist in Melbourne. In August 1986, a valuable Picasso painting is stolen off the walls of the National Gallery of Victoria and held for ransom. In alternating third-person chapters, readers learn that Luke, the talented young Artist with his star on the rise, is involved in a plot to steal the painting and return a forgery in its place. He also happens to be the Bastard Ex of Penny, a white 23-year-old trying to raise their baby, Joshie, on her own. Penny lives next door to Rafi, the Girl, a 17-year-old dealing with the eccentricities of her grieving mother, who never got over the drowning death of Rafi's younger brother in their home country of Bolivia. And who is the Guy (his name as well as his role)? Guy is a white high school senior who unwittingly throws the biggest party of the year, which sets into motion a series of events that gets him mixed up with the lives of the Girl, the Artist, and the Ex. This fully realized cast of characters is rounded out by a supporting cast of sympathetic friends and family, all flawed in their own ways. Williams' prose is wise, knowing, and sympathetic, her tag-team story moving along at a steady clip toward a heart-thumping climax and a satisfying denouement. A winning, offbeat romp for all ages. (Fiction. 15 & up)

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February 1, 2017

Gr 10 Up-Set in 1980s Australia, this title from the author of Beatle Meets Destiny will appeal to readers who are looking for something unique. The novel follows four very different young adults whose lives unexpectedly interconnect. Guy just wants to pass his classes, Rafi longs for a normal life after the death of her baby brother, Luke wants only to live the life of an artist, and Penny is learning the ropes of being a single mom. The characters each tell their stories until they all eventually come together at a party, the central event of the narrative, followed by a shocking twist that changes their lives forever. This is an easy choice not only for older YA readers but also for those who would be categorized as "new adult." Two of the main characters are in high school, while the other two are in their 20s. Some adult themes, especially involving relationships and death, as well as strong language are realistically integrated, along with other hot-button topics, such as mental illness and pregnancy. Each character is believable, and readers will find themselves invested in their tales.

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