Customer Reviews

The Anatomy of Wings

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Native Australian Karen Foxlee's richly drawn debut novel, THE ANATOMY OF WINGS, has the unfortunate quality of having two main characters who are equally strong yet dueling to dominate the spotlight. The catch? One's alive; one's dead. But thankfully for readers, the more we find out about the dead one (13-year-old Beth Day), the more we understand about the one who's left behind (Beth's 10-year-old sister, Jennifer).

The story begins as Jenny and her best friend, Angela, are rifling through a forbidden box at the top of Jenny's mother's closet. Inside, they find clues to Beth's death --- all ordinary objects yet each a key to Beth's downturn. "There were two blue plastic hair combs. A tough girl's black rubber-band bracelet. A newspaper advertisement for a secretarial school folded in half. A blond braid wrapped in gladwrap. A silver necklace with a half-a-broken-heart pendant. An address, written in a leftward-slanting hand, on a scrap of paper. Ballet shoes wrapped in laces."

As the narrative unfolds, the story behind each of these objects is revealed --- the beloved braid of hair their mother chopped from Beth's head while angrily wrestling with her on the kitchen floor; the flyer for secretarial school: a last-ditch effort to keep Beth from getting into trouble; the necklace worn by Beth and her semi-boyfriend/bed-partner Marco, the 17-year-old bad boy from across town. Watching Beth morph from responsible daughter to wild child hell-bent on doing what she wants is infuriating and depressing but realistic nonetheless.

On a basic level, Foxlee hasn't covered much new ground here --- the story structure is a bit reminiscent of Alice Sebold's THE LOVELY BONES --- but that won't stop readers from identifying with Jenny. The 10-year-old's frustration and curiosity about why her sister won't just cooperate or "get better" is palpable on every page. And typical of any younger sibling, the love she feels for Beth and the devotion to keeping her secrets safe is counterbalanced with her guilty urge to tell the truth about what's actually happening so that Beth can get the help she needs before it's too late.

There are other nice touches as well. The chapters about the other people living on Beth and Jenny's street, although potentially jarring at first, are exceptionally detailed and provide additional context to the world the girls and their parents inhabit. Jenny's obsession with relaying facts about random things, while sometimes distracting to the story and perhaps overdone as a storytelling tactic, add depth to her character and balance out her propensity for letting her imagination get the best of her. And Nanna's character? Well, she's just a hoot.

THE ANATOMY OF WINGS is stuffed with all sorts of ingredients that make teenagers --- especially broody ones --- link arms in jaded unity. Drunken parties are thrown and cigarettes are smoked. Boys are slept with too early. Threats are made about running away. Exasperated parents lay down the law, but it doesn't do any good. In short, this seems like a typical angsty novel, but somehow it's not. While many readers will enjoy (and relate to) these elements, what they'll come to love is Foxlee's honesty in her refusal to wrap anything up neatly, as a few questions are left unanswered. Does Beth kill herself? What exactly did Beth do to Deirdre in the park? Could Beth be saved in the end?

We still get the feeling it's going to take a long time for the Days to recover from their collective fallout. And that's the way it should be.

--- Reviewed by Alexis Burling

This isn't a book. This is poetry.

Foxlee's first novel is a crash-and-burn lesson about youth and the dark spots that creep into teens' minds as they age; a storyline that isn't exacly new on any level. Jennifer Day's story covers everything from exiled grandmothers to failing marriages to the death of a sister, none of which are easy to swallow, but have been written about countless times before. "The Lovely Bones", "The Child Called It", and "Thirteen Reasons Why" are just a handful of novels out there that cover the same ground. While the topic may seem done to death, Foxlee's sublime and abstract style sets her work apart from all the rest.

This book took me a long time to read - not because it's by any means lengthy, but because I stopped so many times to reread the beauty of the words on the page. What's so amazing about this author (and as far as I've experienced, entirely unique to her) is that she finds a way to put things in such a beautiful, captivating light and in such a simple, matter-of-fact way that you start to believe they were never ugly in the first place. She doesn't describe how things are; she renames them entirely, pointing out the loveliness in everything. Even the simplest things - shampoo, night-time skies, a fly caught in a spider's web - start to glow under Foxlee's depiction of them and reek with overpowering importance. She creates a grace about everything without even trying, which is a feat that must be experienced to be appreciated. Her simplistic yet moving view of the world catches you completely off-guard and takes your breath away, which is something none of the books above were able to do, and what sets her book apart.

Not only does Foxlee sneak up on you with her awakening outlooks on life, but makes them completely essential to the plotline. The death of Jennifer's sister swallows her world and takes down everything with it, and you feel that black hole suck you in on every page. Beth's passing is explained in the book through memories, out of order and somewhat disjointed, but powerful in the way they come up throughout the story. Each memory is accompanied by a brick wall of emotions that will knock you down where you stand. Foxlee creates an aura through each event that puts you in the story, crying right along with Mrs. Day and feeling the hopeless decay of Beth firsthand. Without watching Beth cry for the ants stuck in the honey, you don't understand her drawing need to be with Marco. Without seeing her spend hours on end watching the stars on the trampoline, you don't grow suspicious of her friendship with Miranda and her abandonment of her family. Without seeing the world through the halos she experiences after her fainting spell at the lake, you don't feel her restlessness. Without watching Beth slip away, you don't feel the crushing tension between Jenifer's parents or the unsurmountable loneliness of Danielle or Jenifer's excessive need to bury everything under the rug. Without Foxlee's admiration of the small things in life, like the sound of bike tires on pavement or the presence of the bush at night, you can't possibly understand the wilting world Jenifer seems to find herself rooted in. Without that admiration, this book doesn't have half the meaning it holds now.

This book is by far the most moving I've ever read. Some claim it's scatter-brained and the typical teenage story, but I find its simplicity to be the perfect tool to watch Beth's world fall down and its dispersed plotline to be the perfect explanation of why. Foxlee's impressive, heartrending writing style takes a little piece of Beth and Jennifer with each chapter and gives it to you to keep. While the storyline might not be unique to this book alone, that fact undoubtedly is. This book is effortless. It's as if Foxlee planted the overwhelming silence into the first chapter and just sat back as she watched the Days' world unravel on its own. What's really great about this book is that it's not loud, it's not flashy, and it's not forceful in its message, but it buries itself in your mind and haunts you long after you turn the last page.

. . . because that title was already taken, but it's hard to find a good man in this story. The town the people live in will bring to mind the line from The Princess Bride that "Everybody knows Australia is entirely populated by criminals." Apparently this town is, at least the male population. There wasn't a decent man in the story except maybe Uncle Paavo, but I wasn't really sure about him. The girls' father wasn't a pervert, but he was a pretty sad dad speciman. I think the author has some misandristic issues.

I won't re-summarize the plot because that's been done, so I'll attempt to review my response to what I purchased and read.

The book has a provocative title and the paperback has an intriguing photo on the cover. The description on the back is deliberately misleading. I cannot recommend this book for children of any age.

For the most part the book is well-written, and might be enjoyed for its literary merit if it were possible to enjoy it. There are so many sex scenes of a filthy and appalling nature that I never was able to slow down and enjoy the good parts. It stops being well-written at the end when it starts to drone on and on and on and on (I didn't put enough "and on"s in this sentence). The narrator keeps you hooked by saying, in essence, "Any second now my sister is going to die, but wait! I haven't sickened you enough yet. I have to cram one more, two more, three-or-more more unnecessary horrifying and disgusting images down your throat (via your eyes and inner reading voice) before I leave you dissatisfied with the death report." Even though Jenny says she pieced together the story and other people told her some things later on, there's no way Jenny or anyone else knew all the specific details she shared about the things that happened with her sister, so it's really difficult if not impossible to accept what she's saying.

All of this truly awful stuff is happening to a thirteen/fourteen-year-old girl too. That's really hard to take--not that it's unbelievable that a girl that age could act that way--it's just hard to endure all the things that the CHILD does, apparently willingly. There are some fairly graphic sex scenes, including an oral sex session right near the end. I only continued reading because I wanted to know how the author was going to wrap up the fathomless ocean of swill that took place in the book; I was curious to know how Beth would meet her end as well. After all the unbelievably explicit details earlier in the book, the death is left completely vague and the reader is left wondering, "Uuuuh, so what actually happened? I mean, you walked me second-by-second through EVERYTHING else only to desert me now?"

If you have read Go Ask Alice and found it disturbing, you will find this dreary novel nearly as disturbing. It's worse than Go Ask Alice, but not quite as terrible to read because it is a work of fiction. When I say it's worse, I don't mean it's bad writing, just depicting really bad events.

Ick! It was tough to like much of anything in this novel. There were probably likeable things about it, but they were overshadowed by the repetitious horrors of Beth's life.

I know people move on after tragedies and this story depicts that possibility. Some of the neighborhood characters have lived exceptionally stunted lives for decades and some of them appear to be on Beth's highway to heck, but it appears that Jenny might, just might, make a recovery. It may not be a sufficiently cheerful message after the abyss of the novel.

Her sister Beth is gone, and Jenny wants to understand why it all happened. At ten years old, she knows no one will tell her the truth, so she is determined to discover it for herself.

Her search begins with a blue cardboard box. She plans to sift through the things Beth left behind and find clues to explain why Beth changed. There are ballet slippers, a broken heart pendant, black rubber-band bracelets, and an address. Jenny uses them to recall memories and events that led to her sister's death.

Woven in among Jenny's memories are the struggles of the rest of the family. Some are part of the lies and deceit that contributed to Beth's downfall. Others are part of the efforts to stop her downward spiral.

Their parents tried to control their wayward daughter when things began to head in the wrong direction. They tried to limit her activities and monitor her friendships, but Beth used Jenny and anyone else she could to concoct alibis that allowed her to carry on with her dangerous life.

As in many stories with a mystery, Jenny stumbles across more questions than answers as her family crumbles around her.

THE ANATOMY OF WINGS is the first novel for author Karen Foxlee. She shows great creative promise with her unique characters and fierce emotion. She captures the turmoil of those left behind after a tragedy, and the tremendous effort required to hold life together.

Readers may find it challenging at times to separate the different threads of this complex story, but if they are up to the challenge, they will find Foxlee is an author to keep an eye on in the future.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

The Anatomy of Wings is the story of ten-year-old Jennifer Day, who has no idea why her perfect sister, Beth is suddenly gone. Though young and still innocent, she wants answers, and she wants to understand how the sister she knew as the epitome of beauty and all things girly, had turned into someone she hardly even knew. Starting with the contents of a small cardboard box, Jenny starts to unravel the mystery surrounding the loss of her sister and learns to accept the reality of it.

I picked up The Anatomy of Wings on a whim while I was stalking perusing the contents at the bookstore. I happened upon the cover, I read the summary, and I was sold. The debut novel of author Karen Foxlee, The Anatomy of Wings is a heartfelt story of learning to cope with loss in the only way a young girl knows how. It's tumultuous, heartfelt, and captures the true devastation and need for answers that Jenny feels as she continues to question the events leading to Beth's death. Jenny learns that her parents did everything they could to control Beth's wayward behavior, but it only added fuel to the fire.

I truly wanted to love The Anatomy of Wings. It has all the makings of the perfect story. The writing is clear, fluid, and easy to read. The prose perfectly balances descriptiveness, while remaining concise and relatable. However, I felt a disconnect with the story line, perhaps because it was so disjointed (chapters describing other families, etc). The elements were all there to make it relevant to teens today, but I had a very hard time feeling that connection with Jenny's family. Though the sadness is central in the truth of The Anatomy of Wings, I just didn't feel it myself.

I definitely think that The Anatomy of Wings is a well-written book, and it's not a bad debut. I just had a hard time connecting with it. I give The Anatomy of Wings a 3 out of 5, and I'd recommend it to those who enjoy realistic YA fiction. There are mentions of alcohol and sexual situations, so I'd recommend it to a more mature YA audience, despite the age of Jenny, the narrator.