From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up-Block once again tackles the theme of love and its many variations. This time, she zeroes in on the ultimate taboo: incestuous love. Though Marina and her brother, Lex, struggle against their powerful love and attendant sexual attraction, the force is too strong to be denied. Readers will fear for them as their situation slowly but inexorably propels them toward their ultimate union, and, by extension, to Lex's suicide. It is a double tragedy, because Marina later learns that her brother was adopted. While Block's prose is as poetic and lush as always, her narrative shifts may confuse less sophisticated readers. It's not immediately clear that the italicized portions are from Lex's journal, and chapters switch abruptly from Marina's voice to third person. Also, while parental flakes aren't unusual in Block's fiction, readers may have a difficult time buying into the mother's reason for not telling her children about the adoption. Still, Block might reach a larger audience with this book; it does not stray too far from her characteristic terrain, but is set in a more realistic neighborhood than her otherworldly Shangri-L.A.
Catherine Ensley, Latah County Free Library District, Moscow, IDCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Booklist
Gr. 9-12. Teenage Lex and his sister, Marina, have been close since early childhood, always there for each other. But when their love intensifies during a sexual encounter one night, both are racked with guilt. Lex kills himself; Marina tries to carry on with the support of a friend who loves her and knows that her brother did, too. There have been several recent YA books about incest, but what distinguishes this small poetic novel is its quiet. There's no sexual violence, no abuse. In the siblings' short, alternating monologues to each other, the word
you is an endearment as each teen remembers growing up with a beloved sibling who was mother, father, friend, and child. The young people remember the small physical facts of their childhood together, the tenderness of Marina's baby hand clasped around Lex's finger; the laughter, then darkness. A plot surprise at the end seems patched on, and a long quote from T. S. Eliot's "Wasteland" may be beyond many readers. It's Block's simple, beautiful words that reveal the loving connection--and then the fragments.
Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
