The Sudden Appearance of Hope

Starred review from April 15, 2016
North follows up her brilliant The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (2014) and Touch (2015) with the equally spellbinding story of a young woman with a devastating affliction. When she was 16, Hope Arden began to notice that people were forgetting her; her friends suddenly behaved as though they didn't know who she was, and her parents seemed surprised when she came home, as though they weren't aware they had a daughter. Soon the truth became apparent: the world was forgetting Hope. Hope turns to a life of crimethievery, after all, is a natural career path for someone who is almost immediately forgotten by everyone she comes into contact withuntil the death of another woman shows Hope that there may be a way to cure herself and become ordinary again. Like Harry August and Touch, this is a very risky novel, with a premise that could easily be dismissed by readers as ludicrous, if it weren't for the author's ability to make us believe. Beautifully written, with a protagonist who is both tragic and heroic, the novel is remarkably powerful and deeply memorable, the latest in a string of terrific books from this newly emerged star in the genre-blending universe.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2015

Since age 16, Hope Arden has been fading into anonymity, with her friends failing to recognize her and her mother setting the table for three, not four. Those are the perfect conditions for committing a crime; with a 50,000-copy first printing.

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