Written by Jennifer Donnelly
Published by Delacorte, 2010
ISBN 9780385737630

From the author of award winning A Northern Light comes a book that blends somewhat edgy contemporary young adult fiction with historical fiction and possibly time travel into a story that’s difficult to put down.  Something happened to protagonist Andi Alpers’ younger brother that has turned her angry and self-destructive and has put her mother into the psychiatric ward of a hospital.  Andi knows she’s a wreck and that makes her difficult to walk away from.  She’s in her senior year at a private school in Brooklyn and must complete a thesis in order to graduate.  The problem is that she doesn’t care about anything anymore—except for music.  Andi is intelligent and has a deep passion for, and knowledge of, music of all kinds, from rap to classical.  When her distant father, an award winning geneticist, travels to Paris for work during a break at school he insists that Andi come along and work on her thesis.  She discovers the diary of an actor living through the French Revolution and the actor’s struggle to save a doomed prince of France.  Andi is taken on a wild ride through the actor’s life that ties back to her own inner struggle.  The characters are developed and the details are rich and satisfying.  The book accomplishes what good historical fiction does—it opens your eyes and makes you want to know more.  Favorite line: “Most of the mess that is called history comes about because kings and presidents cannot be satisfied with a nice chicken and a good loaf of bread.”

—Kari Baumbach