Jane Anonymous

October 15, 2019
An abducted teen recounts her harrowing captivity. Stolarz (Shutter, 2016, etc.) ups the psychological ante by crafting a confessional narrative in which her 17-year-old protagonist is taken and held for months against her will. Gutsy first-person narrator "Jane Anonymous" tells her story by alternating between two troubling presents. "THEN" details the moments leading up to and including her gripping "seven months away" while "NOW" tells what has happened since her escape to the "girl who sleeps in her closet with a knife tucked beneath her pillow, trusting no one but herself." Though the cast of characters--from Jane's abductor to Jane, her family, and friends--exhibits a blanched, generic, suburban quality, the depth of psychological intrigue is absorbing and the twist on the Stockholm syndrome, disturbing. Jane's probing monologue while captive details both the mental and physical coping mechanisms she developed and convincingly displays her unwitting realizations, such as her heightened sensory awareness borne of being confined. But Jane's return also clearly shows the fallout of her torment--not only for her, but for those who care about her as well, demonstrating just how far life is from being back to how it was before she was taken and prompting Jane to wonder if her shattered psyche will always be "far beyond repair." This novel is a testament to how the mind can reshape reality in order to survive. Main characters are white. Powerfully graphic. (Fiction. 12-18)

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November 1, 2019

Gr 10 Up-Seventeen-year-old "Jane" was popping into work for a last-minute gift when she was abducted. Held in captivity for seven months, Jane was fed through a cat door, instructed to bathe and keep her room clean, and given stars for good behavior. Then Jane met and developed a deeply emotional attachment to fellow captive Mason, who visited while sneaking through the air ducts. But when Jane finally escaped and sent the police back after Mason, he was nowhere to be found. Jane is back home with her family now, but she left part of herself behind. As she works to readjust to life outside of confinement, difficult memories begin to surface, and Jane isn't sure she wants to know the truth. Alternating between events Then and Now-during captivity and the present-Jane tells her story as an attempt at therapy. The teen's struggle is at the center of the plot and includes believable coping mechanisms, realistic depictions of panic attacks, and detailed descriptions of her confinement, but the work does touch on the suffering of side characters as well. Knowing from the beginning that she survives her ordeal allows readers to focus on the details of Jane's captivity and recovery. Though this close examination may lead some readers to decipher the work's conclusion beforehand, the ending is no less compelling because of it. VERDICT A story about lingering trauma, loss, and the journey toward healing, this gripping crime novel could be a documentary from the Investigation Discovery channel. A must-read.-Maggie Mason Smith, Clemson University, SC

Copyright 2019 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2019
Grades 9-12 Healing starts the moment we feel heard. Seventeen-year-old Jane doesn't feel heard. Her parents, friends, and therapists all want her to talk about the seven months she spent in captivity before she escaped from her abductor. But they only seem willing to listen when she says what they want to hear. They don't want to hear that her favorite foods make her sick now, or that she can't stand the scent of honeycomb candles. Instead, Jane writes her own account, separated into alternating Then and Now chapters, where she can be honest about what happened and why her old life no longer feels like hers. Only, being honest is hard when she's hiding the truth from herself, too. The Then chapters, chronicling those harrowing seven months, are nervy and suspenseful, while the Now chapters relate the fallout with poignant authenticity, from Jane's feelings to those of her family and friends. Less graphic than it sounds, this engrossing confessional is both heartbreaking and hopeful, as Jane slowly comes to recognize and accept the help that's offered.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)