17 & Gone

February 4, 2013
Suma follows Imaginary Girls with another reality-blurring, psychologically complex mystery. Seventeen-year-old Lauren Woodman is haunted by a vision of a girl, also 17, who has gone missing from a nearby summer camp. In rapid succession, Lauren is confronted by the spirits and stories of other missing 17-year-old girls, all of whom manifest in a recurring dream she has about a burning, rundown house. Among those missing—and tormenting Lauren—is her former neighbor, Fiona, who disappeared one night while babysitting Lauren. As Lauren’s obsession with these girls grows, she pushes away the responsibilities of real life, along with her boyfriend and her mother, and readers are left to wonder what Lauren’s role is in these girls’ lives—is she meant to save them? Or something deeper and more sinister? Suma writes beautifully, drawing readers into Lauren’s story and her psyche with painstaking care until the story’s jolting conclusion. Through Lauren’s unraveling journey, readers learn firsthand what it’s like to question one’s own sanity. Ages 14–up. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.

February 1, 2013
Visions of missing girls--all of them 17 years old--haunt a fellow teen, driving her to behavioral extremes. When Lauren Woodman notices a poster announcing Abby Sinclair's disappearance from the nearby Lady-of-the-Pines Summer Camp for Girls, it ignites an internal spark, a sense of urgency. Lauren instinctively knows to keep quiet about it as she doggedly pursues every clue about Abby's fate. Slowly, other missing girls intrude on Lauren's radar: First, Fiona, her evil-tempered former baby sitter, then all sorts of girls, all seemingly forgotten, their cases cold to everyone but Lauren. As the missing girls visit Lauren's dreams and waking life, giving her instructions and warnings, readers will quickly realize the serious mental health implications, but Lauren is smart and crafty enough to hide the truth from her loving mom and concerned boyfriend until a serious crisis erupts. As in her masterful high-wire act Imaginary Girls (2011), Suma explores the boundaries of perception, reality and mental health, but with far less assurance and skill. Overreliance on heavy foreshadowing, telling rather than showing and incremental plotting--particularly in the book's first half--nearly overwhelm the crisper storytelling of the second half. Suma's exquisite sentence-level writing and fine eye for creepy detail are in abundant evidence, however, giving readers hope for a stronger, more tightly edited outing next time. (Psychological thriller. 14-18)

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April 1, 2013

Gr 8 Up-When 17-year-old Lauren glimpses a "MISSING" poster for Abigail Sinclair on a telephone pole, she runs through traffic to remove it. Mesmerized, she reads it as she returns to her van, and when she looks in the rearview mirror, she sees Abby looking back, disheveled, dirty, and wearing her "last seen wearing" outfit. In the coming days and weeks, Abby is joined by other missing girls, all the same age, who disappeared and whose families have stopped looking for them. Lauren becomes obsessed with the missing, but mostly with Abby, whom she believes is the only one she can actually save. But as she delves further into the lives of these girls, she becomes more and more detached from her own reality. Suma's novel subtly explores one teen's descent into schizophrenia. Lauren's first visions of the missing teens are realistic, though paranormal, but as the story progresses, readers begin to wonder about the authenticity of the hallucinations. Lauren is the pivotal character and the only one truly and fully developed, but rather than weakening the story this enables readers to live exclusively in her version of events. Mature without being graphic, with a complex and intriguing plot, this novel should have no trouble finding readers.-Heather E. Miller Cover, Homewood Public Library, AL

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2013
Grades 9-12 In her latest title, Suma takes the typical YA theme of a young girl who discovers semimagical powers and turns it on its head. When her van stalls while driving to school, Lauren notices a poster of a missing girl, Abby. Gradually Lauren begins to feel haunted by Abby and other girls, all age 17, who have gone missing, and she determines to find out what happened to them. Hints are dropped along the way that the narrator, Lauren, may not be reliable, and it soon becomes apparent that Lauren sees the girls not through some mystical power; they are, instead, figments of her imagination and signs of early-onset schizophrenia. Suma expertly paces Lauren's unraveling mental state and her increasing anxiety over what is happening to her, while the supporting characters of Lauren's boyfriend and mom are well drawn and believable in their struggle to help Lauren. A compelling, skillfully written page-turner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)