Lovely, dark and deep

Amy McNamara

Book - 2012

In the aftermath of a car accident that kills her boyfriend and throws her carefully planned future into complete upheaval, high school senior Wren retreats to the deep woods of Maine to live with the artist father she barely knows and meets a boy who threatens to pull her from her safe, hard-won exile.

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Subjects
Published
New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers c2012.
Language
English
Main Author
Amy McNamara (-)
Edition
1st ed
Physical Description
342 p. ; 22 cm
ISBN
9781442434356
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Wren is a different person since the car accident that she walked away from, but that killed her boyfriend moments after their breakup. Months later, she has retreated from her old cosmopolitan life to her father's art studio in northern Maine, where she can be left alone to run, sleep, and sink into a silence that begins to resemble a deep depression. Despite the months of self-imposed silence, Wren is won over by the persistence of Cal, an architecture student also taking a break, hiding out, and dealing with his worsening MS. This first novel, like the poem alluded to in the title, finds beauty, wonder, trepidation, and determination quietly and in small moments. The wandering pace is perfectly evocative of Wren's mental state and the unfolding of her relationship with Cal, but it may deter readers who prefer less reflection. Display this thoughtful meditation alongside favorites from the likes of John Green, Sarah Zarr, and Courtney Summers.--Booth, Heather Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 9 Up-When high school senior Wren discovers she is pregnant, she panics and breaks up with her boyfriend at a party. Patrick, extremely angry, drives her home under the influence and is killed in an accident. Wren survives but loses the baby. In a complete funk from which she cannot free herself, despite medication, she decides to leave her mother in New York City to live with her artist father in a secluded town in Maine, where she tries to come to terms with her loss and guilt. There she meets and gradually falls in love with Cal, who is a bit older and dealing with the physical and emotional toll of having MS. The writing that unveils Wren's first-person perspective is indeed lovely, despite being introspective. However, it takes the teen an inordinate amount of time to work through her challenges, and her frequent setbacks wear thin. Yet the novel ends on a promising, if not shaky note, and Wren appears to learn from her mistakes. Teens who cheered for Amber Appleton in Matthew Quick's Sorta Like a Rock Star (Little, Brown, 2010) as she fought personal demons after her loss will find little of that book's humor and upbeat quality here. However, they may be drawn in by the intensity of Wren's remorse and step forward/step back struggle to regain her sense of self.-Diane P. Tuccillo, Poudre River Public Library District, CO (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Everything changed for Wren when her boyfriend was killed in an automobile accident that she survived. Readers meet Wren in the fall; she should be at Amherst, but after a period of elective mutism following the accident, she decided to take refuge with her artist father at his home in Downeast Maine. There she meets Cal, also on the lam from life; he has multiple sclerosis and has temporarily dropped out of his architecture program at Cornell. Her father, anxious to give her something to do, sets her up with a "job" helping Cal that turns into romance. Refreshingly, Cal is not the agent of her healing; equally wounded, he needs her help as well. McNamara makes the most of the stark setting, taking readers and Wren on long runs through woods and along the coastal rocks. Wren's first-person, present-tense narration is convincingly self-hating and claustrophobic; her emotional journey lurches through her numbness and denial toward self-acceptance. While the debut author has total command over Wren's agonizing present, she has a harder time with her back story, in particular with an inconsistency in her relationship with her parents that does not seem entirely justified by her psychic myopia. An overreliance on simile grows tiresome, though many succeed beautifully: Wren's father's cheery intern is "like an ice cream sundae in work clothes." Despite minor flaws, Wren's quiet emergence from despair rings true. (Fiction. 14 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

john wells' daughter BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. I had things I didn't want, and then I lost them. One minute I was breaking up with my boyfriend, Patrick, the next I was the only one left standing. Empty-handed. A ghost of who I'd been. Broken in a way you can't see when you meet me. My name is Mamie, but my dad calls me Wren. My parents never agreed on anything when they were married, so I answer to both names. I like having a spare. Especially now. Besides, it drives my mother nuts. She thinks my dad calls me Wren to bug her. She says she named me Mamie because it means "wished-for child" and she had to try so hard to have me. Like she conjured me out of sheer will. Which she probably did. That's the kind of person she is. But I looked it up, and it also means "bitter." Either way, Mamie died on the side of a road somewhere back in my old life, and I moved away. Now I'm Wren full time, in a house on the Edge of the Known World, upper East Coast, with my dad, who spends his days in his studio. Perfect for us both. I came here because it's pine-dark and the ocean is wild. The kind of quiet-noise you need when there's too much going on in your head. Like the water and the woods are doing all the feeling, and I can hang out, quiet as a headstone, in a between place. A blank I can bear. I wake up in the morning, get into clothes and out on my bike before I can think about anything. It's a place that could swallow me if I need it to. So that's what I'm doing, music on full blast, trying to think about nothing, crunching over brittle twigs and sticks in the woods along a road I never see anyone use, when a Jeep comes flying around a bend, right at me. Before I can think, I swerve off the road and into a huge tree. My front tire crumples when I hit. Dust and pine needles lift into a cloud as the car skids to a stop. The driver door whips open and a guy gets out. A couple years older than me. "Are you all right?" He looks totally rattled, and maybe even a little annoyed, like I'm the one who messed up somehow. I sit up, untangle myself from the bike, and wipe sticky needles from my palms. The fall knocked the wind out of me. Takes me a second before I can make air come in and out again normally. The front wheel of my bike is bent like an angry giant grabbed it and gave it a twist. For a second I think it looks kind of beautiful. Like something my dad might like. Something that used to make me wish I had my camera. I stare at the ruined rim. "Are you all right? Can you talk?" He's looking at me wildly, like he thinks I might be really hurt or something. I can breathe again, but I've kept quiet for so long, I'm out of practice--I can't think of a single thing to say. He turns away and I hear the engine clunk off. Grabs his phone. "Wait," I say, finding my voice. "I'm fine. See?" I stand. "I was just shocked." He tosses his cell back onto the passenger seat and runs a shaking hand through his hair. After a deep breath, he says, "I didn't see you. There's never anyone along this road." I'm trying to think if I've seen him around. The town's pretty small, but I haven't exactly been hanging out anywhere. And he doesn't look small-town. Charcoal-gray shirt; thick, dark hair falling into his eyes; long, straight nose. Something faraway inside me rings like a little wakeup bell in a long-abandoned cavern. He's still kind of scanning me, a slightly frantic up-and-down, like he might spot something broken, like I'm a miracle for not being flattened into the ground. "God. I could have killed you." His eyes go to the bent tire. "I wrecked your bike." I can't find anything to say. When you've been quiet as long as I have, words leave you. "I'm fine," I manage, again. "I had my music on loud. I didn't hear your car." I reach up to my hair and pull some leaves and sticky needles out of it. "Did you hit your head?" "No, it's just tree stuff, in my hair." I blush. He stares at me for a second. I look at the sky. Like maybe I could somehow slip out of this situation. Fly up and away. "Are you John Wells' daughter?" He's starting to sound relieved. Runs another shaking hand through his hair. "I thought I heard you'd come up here." I nod. God knows what he's heard. I'm sure I made the news last May. The Telegraph doesn't miss a chance to print stories on my dad. Their adopted famous son. Never mind that his work leaves them scratching their heads and laughing at what people will pay good money for and call "art." I look at my hands. Both palms are torn up and pitch-sticky. I pick a small piece of rock out of one. The knee of my jeans is torn. Like I'm an eight-year-old and just wiped out on my bike in the park. His eyes follow mine. "You're hurt." He winces. "Let me take you into town. Dr. Williams can check you out, clean you up." "No, no. That's okay. I'm okay." I don't want to go anywhere, see anyone. Certainly not to the clinic. Or anywhere remotely like a hospital. "I'm fine," I say more assertively. "Really, I'll just go home and wash up. It's no big deal." "Let me give you a ride home, at least," he says, getting in the car, reaching across the front seat, and pushing open the passenger door. I start to pick up my bike but my palms are a wreck. I stop a second, wipe them a little on my thighs. "Leave it," he says, watching me. "Please. You're bleeding. I'll come back for it later." I lift the frame a little more, lean it against the tree. A bird is loud overhead. A hawk maybe, hunting. That strange raspy screeching sound. I wasn't even close to the end of my ride. I need to be out, alone. But he's not going to let me walk home, that's obvious. I kick around in the needles to find my iPhone, buy myself another few seconds to get it together, calm down a little. I look at my bike one last time and walk around to the waiting car door. A pair of metal crutches lean against the passenger seat. He moves them over a bit and I slide in. He watches me look at them. "Break an ankle?" I ask. I always say the right thing. His turn to blush. Shakes his head. "I'm sick." Looks away. "Buckle up." I'm thrumming from adrenaline. Takes me a minute to get the buckle in the right place. He backs the car into the woods a bit, whips a U-turn, heads for my dad's. Excerpted from Lovely, Dark and Deep by Amy McNamara All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.