One Thing Stolen

February 23, 2015
Nadia Cara’s family relocates to Florence from Philadelphia so her history professor father can write a book on a 1966 flood that devastated the Italian city. The book project stalls, but more troubling is Nadia’s sudden transformation from academic prodigy to secret-keeping thief. Inexplicably, she begins to lose the ability to speak while simultaneously becoming obsessed with constructing bird nests from random items she steals around town. For the first two-thirds of the novel, Nadia narrates her own story, but it can be difficult to reconcile the inconsistencies in her voice: sometimes, her language is lyrical, at other times, she’s unable to answer a simple question. The last third of the story is told by Nadia’s best friend, Maggie, who arrives from Philadelphia in a desperate effort to help her friend reconnect with the real world. Like Nadia’s faux bird nests, this is a novel with many layers, ambitiously constructed, but the choice to have most of it told by a poetic narrator said to be in the throes of losing her language skills ultimately makes it less than convincing. Ages 13–up Agent: Amy Rennert, Amy Rennert Agency.

March 1, 2015

Gr 9 Up-This is an intense and ultimately hopeful look at a debilitating mental disorder and a family in crisis. The setting is Florence, where the Caras, Americans from Philadelphia are residing while the professor researches the 1966 flood that nearly destroyed the storied city. His precocious children should be thriving there, especially his daughter and biggest fan, but 17-year-old Nadia is in deep trouble. She has been isolating herself, slipping out on her own, and stealing random items that she compulsively weaves into elaborate nests. She cannot explain her behavior and seems to be losing her ability to speak altogether. Kephart deftly switches between the girl's past and familiar life at home and the scary, precarious existence she is experiencing in Italy. The real-time narrative consists of short staccato sentences, sensory descriptions, and snippets of actual or imagined visions (a boy, a Vespa, and a fluorescent pink duffle). Nadia's psychic pain and confusion are palpable. Once she hits bottom, her loving, but distracted family members rally round and mobilize to get her the professional help she needs. That her father just happens to know a famous, retired neurologist who can devote herself to Nadia's care is almost too good to be true. She is also able to find just the right doctor to immediately identify Nadia's rare disorder. But this novel is about much more than medicine. Nadia's parents arrange for her best friend from home to join them aboard, and she picks up the narrative at the two two-thirds mark and searches for the elusive boy with whom Nadia is obsessed. The boy, Benedetto, narrates the last section, which leaves readers with a measure of hope for the future. VERDICT Kephart's artful novel attests to the power of love and beauty to thrive even in the most devastating of circumstances.-Luann Toth, School Library Journal

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2015
Something very bad is happening to 17-year-old Nadia.Ever since her family relocated to Florence for her father's sabbatical, she's been slipping out at night to steal random objects and then weave them into bizarre nest-shaped forms she hides from her family, and she's losing her ability to speak. The first section of the novel is related by Nadia in brief, near-breathless, panicky sentences that effectively capture her increasing disintegration. Switching smoothly between entrancing flashbacks of her promising past-"It was so easy, being me"-and her painful, confusing present, which includes visions of a "fluorescent" boy with a pink duffle, real or imagined, Nadia relates her story in fragments. Her parents, remarkably slow to realize Nadia isn't just having trouble adjusting, finally contact wise, nurturing Katherine, a doctor, for help. The narrative switches to the voice of Maggie, Nadia's beloved friend and soul mate, who joins the family in Italy to help Nadia and to find the duffle boy, whose existence-or not-has become critically important. It is he who narrates the final brief section. With Nadia's jumbled personality slipping away, the change of narrative voice is especially disquieting, offering few guarantees of a happy outcome. Disturbing, sometimes unsettling and ultimately offering a sliver of hope, this effort rivetingly captures the destructive effects of mental and physical illness on a likable, sweet-natured teen. (Fiction. 11-18)

Starred review from March 15, 2015
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Award-winning Kephart's latest follows Nadia as she, along with her mother and brother, joins her professor father on his sabbatical in Florence, Italy, where he is researching the flood that wreaked havoc on the city in 1966. Once there, Nadia becomes increasingly untethered from reality. Words always seem to just escape her, and she struggles to communicate with her family. And then there's the stealing. Beneath her bed are nests she has woven from fragments of things she has pilfered: a necklace, a scarf, a piece of leather, and so on. And the boy that she followsBenedettois he real or has she only imagined him? Kephart grounds her readers in Nadia's lived experience with a fragmented, sparse voice that reveals her descent into frontotemporal disorder, a rare brain disease. Readers will wonder, along with Nadia, about the dividing line between dream, memory, reality, and art. The second half of the novel, told from the perspective of Nadia's best friend Maggie, at first deepens the mystery, before providing answers as she sets out to return the stolen things to their proper owners. Fans of Jandy Nelson's dense, unique narratives will lose themselves in Kephart's enigmatic, atmospheric, and beautifully written tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)