All the Bad Apples

June 17, 2019
In this emotionally brutal drama set in 2012 Ireland, a young woman goes on a road trip to uncover her family’s secret past. Soon after her older sister, Mandy, vanishes and is presumed dead, Deena Rys, 17, who has just come out as gay to her disapproving family, discovers a letter suggesting that Mandy is still alive and seeking to break the family curse, which supposedly befalls “bad apples” when they turn 17. With companions, including best friend Finn as well as Mandy’s newly revealed teen daughter, Ida, Deena follows a trail of letters across Ireland, each one uncovering another piece of her family’s tragedy-laden history. What she discovers is generations’ worth of shame, secrecy, and sorrow resulting from Ireland’s religiously and culturally restrictive views on teenage pregnancy, “fallen women,” queerness, and reproductive rights. Fowley-Doyle (The Accident Season) draws upon the all-too-horrific fates of unwed mothers-to-be and their children to tell an uncompromising, raw tale, and the curse’s inclusion injects a note of resonant myth. Told in a mix of letters, family stories, and narrative, this devastating novel manages to find hope for the future while sending pointed messages that are as vital as they are timely. Ages 14–up. Agent: Claire Wilson, Rogers, Coleridge & White.

June 15, 2019
Seventeen-year-old Deena, bullied at school for her perceived lesbianism, sets off on a journey across Ireland in search of her beloved older sister Mandy, who is believed to have recently committed suicide. Deena's breathless first-person narration propels readers into the action and drags them across the country and through time. Deena picks up a few companions along the way, including her bisexual, black best (male) friend Finn and Cale (short for Michaela), a possible romantic interest. Cale's great-great-great-great aunt's lesbian relationship with Deena's great-great grandmother is just one of the stories revealed in mysterious letters detailing the lives of Deena's ancestors. The missives provide information about the past and clues about where to look next. Hints of magic, from a family curse to a banshee's wail, amplify the sense of mystery--and the possibility that readers, like Deena's fellow travelers, will find themselves frustrated and confused at times. While the gradually revealed, multigenerational abuse of women, girls, and those who deviate from the norm certainly deserves to be exposed (and, ideally, repudiated), the author's message and the (very) complicated plot overwhelm her narrative--and her main character. As a result, despite evocative writing, eerie details, and intense emotional content, the novel may fail to reach an appreciative audience. A compelling diatribe but not entirely successful as either realistic fiction or folkloric fantasy. (Fiction. 14-18)

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Starred review from July 1, 2019
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Seventeen years younger than the twin sisters who raised her in Dublin, Deena Rys has always lived a life filled with questions. When, the day she turns 17, Deena comes out to her steadfast sister Rachel, she is unaware that their absentee father is within earshot; his poor reaction drives her to the home of her second sister, Mandy, the family's uncontrollable bad apple. Mandy warns her that the Rys family isn't kind to its bad apples, and then she disappears. The police rule it a suicide, but Deena is sure Mandy's still alive, and when she starts receiving letters from her?letters that detail the history of the Rys family women and the curse upon them?she becomes determined to find her. With the help of friends and family, Deena criss-crosses Ireland, uncovering the stories of the women in her family and the children that, willingly or not, they bore. But among the ghosts of the past and the ruins of Magdalene laundries, Deena's own fate becomes increasingly uncertain. Fowley-Doyle (The Accident Season, 2015) travels through generations, examining the power women possess, the things that have been taken from them, and the things they fight to reclaim. Though the story loses an ounce of its tautness when the magical realism moves into the foreground, it remains an astonishingly potent offering to women who break the mold.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)