Burning

June 17, 2013
In a coming-of-age romance driven by a vivid sense of place, Ben Stanley is preparing to head to college, and he's not the only one leaving. His entire town of Gypsum, Nev., is about to be abandoned with the shuttering of the local mine. Lala White, meanwhile, has traveled to the desert for the Burning Man festival, where her Romani family plans to make money by telling Burners' fortunes. Lala is unhappily betrothed to another gypsy, Romeo; when she meets Ben while telling fortunes, she considers the possibility of a different life. Arnold (Sacred) conveys Ben and Lala's growing attraction through their alternating perspectives; Ben also grapples with feelings of obligation and increasing detachment from his best friends, as well as worry over the welfare of his gay younger brother. In Arnold's effort to affect a gypsy dialect and show cultural difference, Lala's voice can be stilted and formal, yet the stirrings of an unconventional first love and the new freedoms that lie in wait for Lala and Ben provide readers ample reason to keep turning pages. Ages 14âup. Agent: Rubin Pfeffer, East West Literary.

May 1, 2013
A white boy afraid to leave his family meets a Romani girl who wants a brief romantic encounter in the Nevada desert. Lala's family sells used cars in Portland, Ore., but is spending a week in the blistering heat of Nevada in order to fleece the gazhe who come to Burning Man; surely the hippies will pay generously to have their fortunes told. Ben lives in a company town that's dying along with its shuttering gypsum mine. In alternating chapters, Lala and Ben tell of their coming-of-age crises: Lala fears the stifling sameness of her coming arranged marriage, while Ben is ashamed of the track scholarship that will provide his escape to college while his family and neighbors leave their soon-to-be ghost town for unemployment. Lala, for Ben, is his brief summer dalliance, the manic pixie dream girl who distracts him from his fears. Ben, for Lala, is the trigger she uses to take control of and redirect her life. Lala's a powerful and independent young woman, though she also exhibits too many romantic gypsy tropes, with her "mess of dark curls...wild" and cascading over an hourglass figure, speaking in contraction-free sentences that entice Ben with their foreignness. Lyrical and inspirational, though Lala's inexplicably outsider view of her own culture, complete with sneers at harmless cultural practices, is a deeply jarring note. (Fiction. 14-17)

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July 1, 2013

Gr 10 Up-Gypsum, Nevada, is quickly becoming a ghost town as the local mine shuts down and people go elsewhere. Ben Stanley and his family are among the last of those leaving. Ben is going to college on a track scholarship while his family moves to Reno. At the local Burning Man festival, he meets Lala, the daughter of a Gypsy leader, who tells fortunes for anyone who stops by, including Ben. The two feel drawn to each other. However, Lala is engaged to a Gypsy boy, with the marriage scheduled in the fall as soon as she turns 18. Talking to a gazho like Ben outside the fortune-telling tent is forbidden. But Lala, chafing under the limitations of a Gypsy woman's life, turns a chance encounter with Ben into a ride out in the desert where their mutual attraction deepens. When her father, fiance, and her fiance's brother find them, the two younger men attack Ben. Lala stops them, but her actions make her a marime, an outcast. The story ends with the two young lovers making decisions about their futures. Ben and Lala take turns narrating the story, giving readers both perspectives of their relationship. Several subplots contrast Ben's plans with those of his family and friends. The background information about the Gypsies and their unusual lifestyle in the United States provides an interesting foundation to the story. Readers looking for a romantic coming-of-age novel won't be disappointed.-Diana Pierce, formerly at Leander High School, TX

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