Second Nature

July 25, 2011
Mitchard's (The Deep End of the Ocean) fans are familiar with the Cappadoras, a family that has suffered the most improbable tragedies. This time out they enter the story through Sicily Coyne, a young woman who lost her face and her father in a tragic fire. Though her indomitable spirit (and the help of spitfire aunt Marie Caruso) has helped her recover, and even thrive, her world collapses again when she discovers that her fiancé was partially responsible for starting the fire and is with her only out of guilt. As their relationship ends, Sicily begins a transformation with Dr. Eliza Cappadora, who gives her a total face transplant, a radical procedure that photographer Beth Cappadora chronicles with her camera. Soon after, moody filmmaker Vincent Cappadora becomes Sicily's lover. But a passionate week in L.A. leaves Sicily pregnant and facing some serious choices. Compounding matters is Vincent's vacillation about their relationship and Sicily's difficulty in navigating a world where she's no longer perceived as a freak. Though readers unfamiliar with Mitchard's previous novels may not appreciate the connections to the Cappadoras, they will embrace Sicily, a strong and extremely empathic heroine whose disfigurement is made clear without being overdone. Though Mitchard's choice to move between tenses can confuse, this is a riveting tale.

July 1, 2011

A face transplant transforms a burn victim into a beauty, but presents new dilemmas.

Sicily's life is forever changed in eighth grade, when the Chicago church in which she is attending choir practice burns down in a freak fire (two Christmas trees ignite). She is luckier than many of her choirmates—she escapes with her life, dashing from a partially blocked church entrance. However, her beloved father, a firefighter, is killed in the blaze, and Sicily's face is severely disfigured. After several corrective surgeries, she must wear a prosthetic nose and heavy greasepaint to emerge in public. Still, she manages an almost normal life. Her Aunt Marie, a glamorous newscaster, raises her after her mother's death. She becomes a sought-after medical illustrator and is engaged to be married to her childhood friend Joey, who was at the church but who survived the fire unscathed. Her plans of adjusting to her "specialness" are rudely dashed when she learns that Joey watched his brother set the fire and that Joey has hid his complicity all these years. She seizes the opportunity to undergo a still-experimental facial transplant. A comatose teenage organ donor whose mother reluctantly takes her off life-support provides the visage, and after the intricate surgery and arduous recovery Sicily finds herself again being stared at—in admiration. Characters from other Mitchard novels, the Oprah-blessed Deep End of the Ocean (1996) and its sequel, trigger a crisis: Beth (mother of the kidnapped child in Deep) is documenting Sicily's metamorphosis in photographs, but it is her older son Vincent, a filmmaker, who truly transforms Sicily—after their brief but tumultuous affair, she becomes pregnant. If she doesn't terminate the pregnancy, the powerful immunosuppressants she is on may damage the fetus; if she foregoes the drugs, she may literally lose her face and possibly die from sepsis.

Mitchard handles this fraught material unsensationally, adding plenty of convincing research-backed detail. Too often though, the characters' endless moralizing douses the excitement.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

April 1, 2011

Sicily was badly disfigured by the flames that devoured her school and took her firefighter father's life; then her mother died as well. But she's managed to lead a normal life and even has a fiance--until a dreadful secret is revealed, and Sicily contemplates something pretty cutting edge: a total face transplant. Classic Mitchard; buy multiples wherever she is popular.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2011
Mitchard's latest ought to come with a warning: make no immediate plans, because this book will take over your life. In the first five hold-your-breath chapters alone, fate pummels Chicagoan Sicily Coyne with five life-shattering punches as the young teen loses her fireman father in the fire that burns off most of her face. Two years later, her mother dies. Fast-forward a decade, and despite being neither sweet nor 16 and never-been-kissed, Sicily is enmeshed in an unlikely engagement to her childhood sweetheart that is doomed, ending in a crushing revelation. Set in the not-too-distant future, Mitchard's spot-on first-person narrative exposes Sicily's every raw nerve as the young woman reels under each blow, falls, hits the canvas, then staggers back to her feet. It is impossible not to root for her when the opportunity to undergo a face transplant promises a whole new life. For the first time, Sicily, though more mature than most women her age in some aspects but socially inexperienced, can taste what she's been missing. From tacos to kisses and more, she is both delightfully and excruciatingly fast-tracked through life experiences guaranteed to have readers alternately loving and hating but never forgetting this remarkable heroine. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Best-selling Mitchard (her first novel was the first Oprah Book Club pick), herself no stranger to reversals of fortune, takes on headline-plucked topics in a high-profile novel destined to galvanize fans and new readers alike.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)