Imaginary Girls

Starred review from April 4, 2011
In her first YA novel, Suma creates a surreal and dreamy world where magical thinking is carried to a chilling extreme. Fourteen-year-old Chloe idolizes her older sister, Ruby, a boy magnet who runs wild in their New York upstate town and is denied nothing. At a drunken party, Chloe accepts Ruby's challenge to swim across the local reservoir and finds a drifting rowboat holding the body of London, a girl from school. Afterward, Chloe is forced to move in with her father in another state; two years later, Ruby fetches Chloe back, and everything's different. Or nothing is. Chloe can't tell for sure. Ruby still has the run of the town, but there's London, alive and well. Chloe begins to recognize that things work differently in her sister's world; events bend to accommodate Ruby, and reality itself seems to take its shape from her desires. Suma (Dani Noir) uses the story's supernatural, horror movieâready elements in the best of ways; beneath all the strangeness lies beauty, along with a powerful statement about the devotion between sisters. Not your average paranormal novel. Ages 14âup.

Starred review from May 1, 2011

A sexy, surreal and touching exploration of the outer limits of sisterly love's power.

In upstate New York, Ruby and Chloe have reared themselves after being abandoned by their useless drunk of a mother, and they nearly own their idyllic town. Ruby is a casually sultry beauty whose magnetic appeal allows her to get her way in matters of fashion, finance and affection. Ferociously protective of Chloe, who feels she's "a pencil drawing of a photocopy of a Polaroid" of her sister, Ruby Makes Things Happen. When a fellow teen dies during a summer party at the town's reservoir, where an entire neighboring town lies, silent and drowned, Chloe exiles herself to Pennsylvania to live with her father. But two years later, Ruby calls her home to discover that London, the girl who died at the party, is alive, and nobody remembers she was dead. Ruby is full of even more odd stories and rules, and Chloe is torn between a dreadful curiosity—how are Ruby, London and the reservoir connected?—and relief at being back in her sister's fierce, loving orbit.

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

Starred review from July 1, 2011

Gr 9 Up-After discovering the body of a classmate while swimming in the local reservoir, Chloe, 14, is sent away to live with her father, instead of with the older sister who raised her. Two years later, Ruby comes to get her back. When she returns to town, London is no longer dead and Chloe starts to see the true nature of the mysterious power her sister holds. What begins as a fairly straightforward story twists and turns its way into something far more sinister and dark. Ruby's hold on the town initially seems to be the hold that all popular, beautiful girls have, especially when seen through the lens of a younger sister. As the story progresses, Chloe sees that Ruby's power is something else entirely, and not entirely natural. Despite this, Ruby will go to any means necessary to protect Chloe, and the teen starts to question the bonds of family and loyalty as she realizes exactly what that means. The creepy intensity grows slowly, building an atmospheric piece that draws readers in and holds them through unexpected developments. Some readers may want more explanation of the fantastical elements, but the unsettled feeling of the ending fits perfectly with the tone and mood of the rest of the narrative.-Jennifer Rothschild, Prince George's County Memorial Library System, Oxon Hill, MD

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2011
Grades 9-12 A moody, drenched atmosphere supplies intrigue and pulls readers into an upstate New York town whose essence seems epitomized by the beautiful, charismatic Ruby, sister to the storys narrator, Chloe. Ruby is a teller of tales, chief among them the story of a flooded town still lying beneath a nearby reservoir. In her stories, otherworldly townspeople patrol beneath the surface, demanding tribute. When a local girl dies suspiciously during a forbidden swim party at the lake, the shaken Chloe leaves town to live with her father, but eventually Ruby convinces her to come back. Thats when things get plain bizarre. The dead girl, London, is partying with Chloes friends, and Ruby, living with another in a string of besotted beaux, comes and goes mysteriously. Always protective of Chloe, Ruby now seems controlling. What exactly is going on is never totally clear, either to Chloewho isnt exactly the most reliable of narratorsor the reader. Still, the story is eerie, and Sumas rambling, loopy sentences reinforce a feeling of displacement. For teens who like open-ended, spooky oddities.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)