Book
The anatomy of wings / Karen Foxlee.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780375847615 (tp)
- Physical Description: 361 p. ; 22 cm.
- Edition: 1st American ed.
- Publisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2010, c2007.
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Suicide > Fiction. Grief > Fiction. Sisters > Fiction. Family problems > Fiction. Australia > Fiction. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Kitimat Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kitimat Public Library | Y Fox (Text) | 32665001602939 | Youth Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2009 January #1
*Starred Review* Set in a small Australian town in the early 1980s, this shining debut novel charts a young girl s grief after the death of her older sister. Months before Beth s fatal fall, 10-year-old Jennifer s beautiful singing voice disappears. When and why it "got stuck" forms a central mystery that unifies Jennifer s narrative, which loops fluidly between past and present. Each clue leads back to events from the tumultuous year before Beth died, and Jennifer s search for her voice becomes a larger search for how her beloved sister was lost and what it means to leave childhood behind. In this sensitive, original story, Foxlee explores familiar elements: the warmth and suffocation of living in "Nowheresville"; the chasm of misunderstanding between parents and adolescent children. Jennifer loves the comfort and solidity of facts, and she collects information like currency, but her observations are also poetic and washed with magic realism. Not all the plot s tangents are well integrated, but the story works as memory does, with skips, gaps, and sudden, piercing moments that are as illogical and illuminating as a dream. With heart-stopping accuracy and sly symbolism, Foxlee captures the small ways that humans reveal themselves, the mysterious intensity of female adolescence, and the surreal quiet of a grieving house, which slowly and with astonishing resilience fills again with sound and music. - Horn Book Magazine Reviews : Horn Book Magazine Reviews 2009 #2
"[Nanna] told me things that her mother had told her, for instance, if you are unhappy with an embroidered flower you should unstitch it. It is the same with life. If you are unhappy you must unstitch it until you find the wrong part and make it right." Set in a poignantly evoked, sun-scorched 1980s Australian mining town, Foxlee's graceful first novel recounts a tragedy that occurred despite family members' efforts to "unstitch." Eleven-year-old Jennifer's narrative begins after the death of her older sister Beth and flashes between the present and the preceding year, which encompasses Beth's increasingly disaffected adolescence. Foxlee's vaguely mystical imagery seems forced at times, and her periodic shifts to Jennifer's neighbors' points of view are more distracting than revelatory. Nevertheless, she creates a moving, believable portrait of a teenage girl falling into destructive behavior (lying, drinking, having casual sex, etc.) without a straightforward reason why. Was Beth, as Nanna insists, communing with angels? Was she, as Foxlee occasionally hints, too beautiful and fragile to survive? After Beth dies, Jennifer and her best friend sift through a box of Beth's belongings, looking for clues; but they can't really piece together any answers. Perhaps the best answer is that every loss is something of a mystery. Copyright 2009 Horn Book Magazine Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2009 January #2
Foxlee's debut novel (published in Australia in 2007) seeks answers to a sister's meaningless downfall and death on the cusp of adulthood. Narrated by an adult Jenny channeling her ten-year-old self, the novel arcs from her older sister's funeral back through the preceding year in their small Australian mining town and ends with the eventual, hope-filled beginnings of healing. Jenny's exploration is partially about Beth's life (sexual awakening, drinking, cigarettes) and partially her own search for her singing voice which has disappeared, clearly in response to the fracturing of her family. Whether Beth truly saw angels or thought sex would mend broken men remains unclear; Jenny's perspective means she fills in the blanks of her sister's life, as anyone must after a loss. Elegant, evocative writing set this apart from the rash of recent and forthcoming dead-sibling stories, but the young narrator, unfamiliar Australian terms and seemingly unnecessary recent-past setting (1983) will make this a hard sell to nearly any teen readerâalthough adult readers will rejoice in its elegiac beauty. (Historical fiction. 14 & up) Copyright Kirkus 2009 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved. - Library Media Connection : Library Media Connection Reviews 2009 May/June
As the book opens, everyone is in deep mourning, but it is impossible to tell who has died and how. As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that the sister of Jennifer, the narrator, has died. Using items belonging to Beth, Jennifer and her friend try to solve the unanswerable question of why Beth died. This potentially interesting plot is derailed by confusing time sequences and too many characters. The book is set in Australia, so some of the colloquialisms will not make sense to American readers without a glossary. This reviewer struggled to finish the book. It contained too many unanswered questions. It contains questionable language, which, while appropriate, should be noted. Additional Selection. Bonnie Morris, Media Generalist, Minnehaha Academy, Minneapolis, Minnesota ¬ 2009 Linworth Publishing, Inc. - LJ Express Reviews : LJ Express Reviews
Ten-year-old Jennifer has lost her singing voice and hopes she can find it again in the box of her dead sister Beth's possessions. At 14, Beth was a fragile soul living a wild life in their small, Australian mining town until the day she fell from a water tower. Now Jennifer seeks to make sense of her death. Why It Is for Us: Foxlee's first novel scored quite a blurb from best-selling author Marcus Zusak (The Book Thief): "Sometimes you read a book so special you want to carry it around for months." Foxlee deserves the praise. Her acute awareness of place and character is demonstrated in elegiac prose that evokes one family's sharp grief at the loss of their teenage daughter. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2008 December #4
Set in the author's native Australia in the early 1980s, this sensitive debut novel weaves and bobs between two time frames as the narrator, Jennifer, tries to understand the death of her older sister, 14-year-old Beth, who fell from a water tower. In the prevailing view, Beth was wild: she had sex with strangers and fell asleep, drunk, in neighbors' yards. But the girls' grandmother believes that Beth once saw an angel and had a bit of grace in her ever since, and that her acts were her attempts to save people. Jennifer sees evidence of both, remembering that "the more [Beth] glowed, the wilder she got." Trying to understand Beth's decline and to cope with her own grief, which has deprived her of her singing voice, Jennifer searches for clues in a box of Beth's belongings. Tangents may confuse; at times, the litany of small details and anecdotes burden the plot. But the metaphors embedded in the story and the luscious prose ( a teacher's eyes are "a flat gray-green and impenetrable as a crocodile's") will hold readers until the moving conclusion. Ages 14âup. (Feb.)
[Page 50]. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal Reviews : SLJ Reviews 2009 July
Gr 10 UpâThis complex novel explores the fragility of innocence and the existence of miracles in everyday life. Jenny, a prepubescent girl in an Australian mining town, retraces the last year of her teenage sister's life in an effort to understand what appeared to be Beth's descent into moral degradation but was perhaps actually her acceptance of martyrdom after seeing an angel. Told through Jenny's naive and trusting voice, the narrative is nonetheless rich and languid, with the natural world awash in similes, the manmade world brimming with specific-pop culture references of 1980s Australia, and metaphors on nearly every pageâof birds, fairies, winged insects, or angels. While Jenny's voice evokes characters in classic preteen literatureâLois Lowry's A Summer to Die (Houghton, 1977) and Katharine Paterson's Jacob Have I Loved (HarperCollins, 1980) come to mindâthere is a truly adult sensibility to this story, especially in the brutality of the sexual situations in which Beth becomes involved, that recommends it to sophisticated readers. This is an unusually literary book that some readers will find deeply meaningful and beautiful, while others will roll their eyes at the preponderance of metaphorical imagery.âRhona Campbell, Washington, DC Public Library
[Page 82]. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information. - Voice of Youth Advocates Reviews : VOYA Reviews 2009 April
Sisters Jenny and Beth live in Australia during the 1980s with ten-year-old Jenny helplessly watching thirteen-year-old Beth slowly self-destruct. After Beth's unexplained demise, Jenny and her best friend find Beth's keepsake box. They trace its items to discover their importance to Beth and better understand her life and death. Moreover Jenny has lost her singing voice, and the girls believe its return is also connected to Beth Jenny narrates the story with no reflection from Beth herself. She re-examines each keepsake through flashbacks while returning to the present to describe her family's increasing deterioration from grief. Eerily she also details an otherworldly golden glow and mysterious power emanating from Beth, with their grandmother asserting that Beth spoke with angels. Beth's mystifying, ethereal beginnings are diluted by a familiar scenario of escalating bad choices involving friends, boys, drugs, alcohol, and parents utterly unequipped to recognize her problems or intervene effectively. Presumably her death was a suicide, an act that inexplicably results in much-needed healing to her lonely, needy neighbors. As Jenny analyzes Beth's life, she travels through the grief process, regains her singing voice, and realizes her family must progress likewise to heal. Scenes are lush and meticulously detailed but also prolonged, with the novel's length onerous to those preferring action to description. Sophisticated females who especially enjoy details and varied plot devices comprise the likely audience for this realistic coming-of-age story.âLiza A. Hazlett 3Q 3P J S Copyright 2009 Voya Reviews.
