★ 05/01/2017
Kaylee Novell, 17, has a big secret, and she’s managed to keep it from her friends and classmates for a long time until Liana Fatone, producer of an award-winning podcast, shows up at her door. The second season of the show, The Possible, focuses on Crystal Bryar, Kaylee’s birth mother, who received national attention at age 14 for having telekinetic powers, and again at 23 for being convicted of murdering her two-year-old son. Kaylee, who was four at the time, was the prosecution’s star witness. Liana’s investigation piques Kaylee’s curiosity, and she begins to wonder if perhaps she, too, has telekinesis. Altebrando (The Leaving) nails the staccato delivery of popular investigative podcasts like Serial, a style that she uses to punctuate the questions Kaylee asks herself (“What if Will hadn’t actually seen anything? What if she had come on to him? What if he’d let her?”). Her sentences, though spare, are extremely effective in landing emotional punches (“I’d have to write him back. I’d have to tell him. I wasn’t special”) in this taut and thoroughly gripping mystery. Ages 13–up. Agent: David Dunton, Harvey Klinger. (June)
"Altebrando nails the staccato delivery of popular investigative podcasts like Serial . . . Extremely effective in landing emotional punches . . . Taut and thoroughly gripping." - starred review, Publishers Weekly
"The juicy premise is enough to draw mystery/crime fans, and Altebrando unspools details with a deft hand." - BCCB
"This gripping tale, full of unexpected twists and turns, will intrigue readers who enjoy psychological thrillers with a touch of the paranormal." - School Library Journal
"A fast-paced thriller . . . Fans of true-crime podcasts especially will feel right at home." - Booklist
"You will not sleep, check your phone or even breathe once you begin reading The Leaving. Altebrando hides a meditation on memory and identity inside a top-speed page-turner. I promise, you will not even look up from the page." - E. Lockhart, author of WE WERE LIARS on THE LEAVING
"A twisting, harrowing story . . . Engrossing, both as a thriller and a meditation on memory—its limits, its loss, and the ways it deceives and constructs identity." - starred review, Publishers Weekly on THE LEAVING
"This is no mere thriller; folded into this compulsively readable work are thought-provoking themes. . . . Teens who enjoy engrossing, contemplative titles such as Adam Silvera’s More Happy Than Not will devour this insightful musing on memory and identity." - starred review, School Library Journal on THE LEAVING
"As heart-stopping as it is heart-breaking, The Leaving layers a wildly strange suspense story over a lovely and unexpected narrative of grief, loss, and the struggle to imagine a future in the shadow of the past." - Robin Wasserman, author of GIRLS ON FIRE on THE LEAVING
"This book gripped me on the first page, and by the last, had really moved me. It's a twisty, oh no she didn't thriller that keeps the surprises firing, but also a thoughtful meditation on memory, identity, and what really makes us who we are." - Bennett Madison, author of SEPTEMBER GIRLS on THE LEAVING
"We are rushed headlong into Altebrando’s The Leaving, and instantly we want to know: Who are these wildly intriguing teens? Where are their memories hiding? Who or what has engineered the disappearance of their childhood? Bold, inventive, and engaging, The Leaving leaps straight off the page." - Beth Kephardt, author of SMALL DAMAGES and THIS IS THE STORY OF YOU on THE LEAVING
04/01/2017
Gr 9 Up—In this absorbing psychological mystery, adopted 17-year-old Kaylee's ordinary life (softball, best friends, school, a crush on a boy) is drastically altered after Liana, a producer of a Serial-like podcast, asks to interview her about Crystal, Kaylee's birth mother, who claimed to have telekinesis as a teen. For most of the past 13 years, Kaylee has tried to forget Crystal and the knowledge that when Kaylee was four, her eyewitness testimony helped sentence Crystal to prison for killing Kaylee's two-year-old brother. Her mother insisted she didn't do it, and Liana intends to prove whether Crystal's powers are real. Kaylee's "what ifs" resurface as the unexplained events that she suspects she might have caused over the years make her question whether she has paranormal powers, too. Her obsession with Crystal and her past threatens her relationship with her loving parents and with Aiden, her best guy friend, and forces Kaylee to take a hard look at herself. The narrative's structure, with its podcast excerpts, texts, emails, and copies of documents, adds to the book's appeal. Most of the characters are fleshed out, except Crystal, who remains maddeningly underdeveloped. Kaylee is not always an easy character to like, given her sometimes insensitive attitude toward others, but her characterization seems authentic considering her lived experience. VERDICT This gripping tale, full of unexpected twists and turns, will intrigue readers who enjoy psychological thrillers with a touch of the paranormal. A strong selection for most libraries.—Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton
2017-03-29
Kaylee's birth mother, Crystal, claimed telekinetic powers before she was convicted of murdering Kaylee's little brother, Jack; 13 years later, Liana, a journalist revisiting the story for her podcast, wants to know if Kaylee's inherited Crystal's ability. Kaylee's suppressed her memories of her early years with Crystal, serving a life sentence in a Pennsylvania penitentiary, but still dreams of Jack and suspects Crystal's claims were valid and that she may have inherited them. Against her parents' wishes, Kaylee agrees to be interviewed for the podcast if Liana will take her to see Crystal. As episodes go live, Kaylee becomes a celebrity at school and the swim club where she's a lifeguard. She leverages her fame to attract a boy but takes friends (including Aiden, who wants to be more) for granted. Unsure of her powers, Kaylee still enjoys the attention—even when it's more fear than popularity. Plot twists entertain, but the story's weakened by its superficial, insensitive portrayal of adoption. The juxtaposition of Kaylee's world of white suburban affluence, where everyone belongs to the swim club, and Crystal's foreshortened world, from impoverished childhood to prison, is stark. Well-heeled characters seem indifferent to the less-privileged; Crystal, brutal and brutalized, is treated with contempt. Kaylee's occasional reflections on her birth mother's privations, seemingly intended to convey her empathy, are belied by her cruelty to Crystal. A narrative deaf to adoption's difficult complexities: the ties that may no longer bind but never disappear. (Fiction. 14-17)
