kirkusreviews.com
An English teen reckons with the
loss of her artist mother.
Reuter Hapgood (The Square Root
of Summer, 2016) serves up an intriguing story of love, loss, and sibling
relations. When 17-year-old Minnie Sloe’s “disco ball of a mother” vanishes on
the last day of the school year, Minnie’s world is completely upended as she
finds a letter that points to suicide—and literally begins to see in black and
white. Minnie and her sisters were raised solely by their mother, who attained
artistic superstardom when her debut sculpture won the prestigious Turner
Prize. Minnie and her sisters—19-year-old Niko, who’s Deaf, and 15-year-old
Emmy-Kate—each have strong artistic leanings and have relished their eclectic
upbringing, accustomed to their mother’s erratic behavior, characterized by
Minnie as “sinkholes and starlight” and not a psychological condition that
might lead their mother to take her own life. But when she begins to suffer
from monochromacy, Minnie begins to question her own sanity and deeply probe
her mother’s demons in ways that greatly impact her relationships with her
sisters, steady boyfriend, and an attractive new guy at school. Bracketed by
the loss of a parent and teen romance, this well-wrought narrative excels at
normalizing both the throes of artistic expression and the varying dimensions
of physical and mental challenges. Minnie and her sisters are white; her
boyfriend and his uncle are of Indian descent.
A moving tale of grief and
self-discovery. (Fiction. 14-18)
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