Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia

May 15, 2013
After one life-changing night with her secret crush Andy Cooper, Frenchie Garcia, a cigarette-smoking artist who quotes Dickinson and hangs out in a cemetery, is haunted. Frenchie is in the limbo of what-comes-next. She's finished high school but has been rejected by art school. She is sullen and anxious and can't seem to get her life moving. Gradually, what happened that night with Andy and its lingering impact on Frenchie are revealed. It was the same night that Andy ended his own life. No one even knows that she liked Andy, let alone about the time they spent together, so Frenchie keeps her guilt and confusion to herself. When her internal rage finally boils over, she embarks upon an all-night trek with Colin, a boy she barely knows, re-creating every step of her spontaneous adventure with Andy and desperately searching for whatever she must have missed. Sanchez's expertly crafted narrative moves seamlessly between "that night" and now, pulling readers into Frenchie's anger and pain without straying into cliches of teen angst. Frenchie's struggle to identify and process her own emotions rings out as authentic and honest. There are no easy answers for Frenchie Garcia as she attempts to recover from the tragedy of suicide. An exceptionally well-written journey to make sense of the senseless. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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October 1, 2013

Gr 9 Up-Seventeen-year-old Frenchie is surprised when Andy Cooper asks her out-she has had a crush on him for years, but he barely acknowledges her. On top of that, it is a strange date as they trek to various places that seem to be important to him. When Frenchie finds out the next morning that he has committed suicide, she wonders why he chose to spend his last night alive with her. A bit of a loner, Frenchie discovers the grave of Emily Dickinson and pretends that the woman is the famous poet and makes her her best friend and confidante. After all, the grave is just down the street from where Frenchie lives in Orlando, Florida, convenient for get-togethers and gab fests. Grieving over Andy's death, Frenchie must discover why he thought he had to kill himself. She enlists Colin, a boy she met at a club, to help her retrace their steps on Andy's last night. Despite its dark topic and the depths of Frenchie's sorrow, there is an undercurrent of humor in her observations and her conversations with Em, which keeps the novel from becoming overwhelmingly a book about death and grief. There are also the realistic aspects of teen angst as Frenchie wonders why Joel, her best friend for almost forever, has a new girlfriend, someone Frenchie does not like at all. This is a fast, well-written read with a satisfactory though not necessarily happy ending and a protagonist to remember-a survivor and person of action. A solid choice that is accessible even for reluctant readers.-Janet Hilbun, Texas Women's University, Denton, TX

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