Crazy

July 1, 2012

Gr 9 Up-Connor and Isabel met over the summer when they worked as arts-and-crafts instructors at a sleepaway camp. Now back at their respective homes in the fall of their senior year in high school, Isabel in Seattle and Connor on nearby Bainbridge Island, the two have promised to keep in touch. Through just the emails exchanged between them, Reed creates a vibrant and robust world in which the main characters are well developed, as are their lives and the members of their families. Izzy is intense and beautiful with extreme highs and lows. Emotionally grounded Connor, clearly in love with her, becomes her confidante and painfully witnesses her increasingly self-destructive behavior as she spirals out of control. He must decide whether and how to intervene to save her. In this modern-day epistolary novel, one has to accept the premise that teenagers are actually writing sometimes lengthy emails to each other, often with surprising insight into their emotional states. Thanks to Reed's convincing writing, that hurdle is easily crossed, and teens will undoubtedly race through this compelling and moving novel.-Ragan O'Malley, Saint Ann's School, Brooklyn, NY

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.