The Half Life of Molly Pierce

Starred review from May 5, 2014
For the past year, 17-year-old Molly has been suffering blackouts, waking up hours later unable to remember what she’s been doing. When she witnesses a fatal motorcycle accident, Lyle, the dying victim, knows who she is even though she has never met him. As Molly pieces together the story of her friendships with the self-centered Lyle and his dependable and attractive brother, Sayer, she discovers how little she knows about her own life. Alternating clipped sentences and run-on thoughts to create a unique voice, newcomer Leno conveys the everyday struggles of living with depression, “wondering how just living and breathing and showering and brushing our teeth and combing our hair could be this fucking hard?” Molly’s relationships with other characters stand out in their complexity; remembering Lyle, she “watch as we progress backward from best friends who sort of hate each other to best friends who love each other to best friends who are unsure of how close they are.” The twist the novel builds toward introduces a fierce new presence and ensures a quietly tragic road to the hopeful ending. Ages 13–up. Agent: Wendy Schmalz, Wendy Schmalz Agency.

June 1, 2014
In a fast-moving thriller, a depressed teen must piece together why she keeps blacking out and losing time and why everyone around her seems to know a secret.Ever since her suicide attempt a year earlier, Molly explains to the reader in breathless and moody prose, "[t]here are long stretches where I don't remember anything." Coming back to consciousness one afternoon in her car, having apparently skipped school, she sees a boy on a motorcycle weave through traffic and collide violently with a truck. Thrown both by the accident, which leads to the boy Lyle's death, and by Lyle's insistence that he knows her, Molly withdraws further. Her one comfort is Sayer, Lyle's brother, with whom Molly feels an instant bond, though she quickly realizes Sayer knows more than he's telling. The book has an almost noir tone. Molly's confusion, fear and pervasive depression create a dark atmosphere, even as short paragraphs and sentence fragments establish a relentless pace. What readers learn as Molly's memories start to come back answers most of the story's questions, but a touch anticlimactically: No one really needed to die in a motorcycle accident for the truth to be revealed.Enjoyably suspenseful, even if the stakes aren't as high as they seem. (Suspense. 14-18)

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May 1, 2014

Gr 8 Up-In this mystery unraveled in reverse, Molly begins to fit together pieces of a life only half-remembered, due to frequent blackouts. After witnessing a tragic accident during which a dying stranger seems to know her, memories of those blackout periods begin to return. When the teen connects with the stranger's brother, she feels an intense, familiar love, and Molly questions what she thinks she knows about herself. The protagonist's Dissociative Identity Disorder allows her characterization to unfold slowly, the narrative building on short bursts of memories that go further back in time, revealing more secrets further in to the story. The disorientation at the novel's start begins to settle as the flashbacks occur, and the sense of urgency for the two alternating time lines to merge intensifies with the girl's increasing melancholy and thoughts of self-harm. Molly's relationship with her other identity, Mabel, is most developed and therefore most interesting. The race to uncover Molly's truth will keep readers turning pages.-Sarah Townsend, Norfolk Public Library, VA

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