Paper Heart

April 1, 2021
Tess, whose BFF, Colette, died accidentally in Tornado Brain (2020), is severely afflicted with grief and guilt. The 13-year-old has returned with her cousins' family to a cabin in Wyoming where she, her twin sister, and Colette spent an idyllic summer the previous year. But with her friend gone just two and a half months, her pain is palpable. Complicating matters is the fact that her loving mother provides far more attention to Tess' twin, Frankie, who is on the autism spectrum. Tess, a talented artist, has enrolled in a summer art camp where she is befriended by a boy called Izzy. At first he has no idea what's causing her intense suffering, but he's both supportive and kind. That's far less true of fellow camper Jackie, who's had a crush on Izzy for years and will do anything to undermine Tess. The mostly White cast is richly depicted, but it's Tess' believable, disabling grief that is the focus: Convinced that an angry and accusing Colette may be haunting her, Tess' thoughts are constantly interrupted by a cruel inner voice, and she responds by biting her fingernails and cuticles, leaving her fingers raw and bleeding. With help from her supportive aunt, Izzy, and even imperturbable Frankie, by summer's end Tess makes tentative steps toward healing, progress that readers will welcome. An engaging tale of grief and the power of friendship. (Fiction. 10-14)

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May 1, 2021
Grades 6-9 Tess' best friend, Collete, has died in an accident, and Tess--twin sister of Frankie, the protagonist of Tornado Brain (2020)--is beyond bereft. Though devastated, she has gone with her family to their cabin in Wyoming for vacation. There she is enrolled in art camp, where she meets a cute boy named Izzy; it's an instant crush for both of them. Meanwhile, strange things begin happening to Tess. She develops a preternatural fear of an animal-crossing overpass on the road to their cabin; she attracts a stalker, an elderly man who wears a yellow scarf just like the man in a ghost story Tess had told Colette; and, well, there's more. Tess wonders, is Colette haunting her? At the same time, she keeps hearing a vicious, intimidating voice in her head that is always putting her down. Patrick's cleverly plotted tale is a mash-up of mystery and summer romance that makes for an agreeable companion to Tornado Brain, and it can also be read and enjoyed independently.

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