Cage of Stars [Hardcover]

Jacquelyn Mitchard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2006

12-year-old Veronica Swan's idyllic life in a close-knit Mormon community is shattered when her two younger sisters are brutally murdered. Although her parents find the strength to forgive the deranged killer, Scott Early, Veronica cannot do the same. Years later, she sets out alone to avenge her sisters' deaths, dropping her identity and severing ties in the process. As she closes in on Early, Veronica will discover the true meaning of sin and compassion, before she makes a decision that will change her and her family's lives forever.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A young Mormon girl finds herself torn between retribution and forgiveness in The Deep End of the Ocean author Mitchard's latest. Twelve-year-old Veronica "Ronnie" Swan witnesses the murder of her two sisters in her family's yard in tiny Cedar City, Utah. Murderer Scott Early is immediately apprehended, but is diagnosed with schizophrenia and ends up spending just three years in a state mental hospital. The rest of Ronnie's family turns to their faith to forgive Early, visiting him just before his release after a battery of drugs have restored him to normalcy. But Ronnie remains angry and haunted by her inability to save her sisters from him, and as she comes of age she tracks Early to San Diego, becomes an EMT, talks his wife into hiring her as a nanny for their infant daughter, and starts planning her vengeance. But as Early's life comes into focus, Ronnie's plan leads to an unexpected, if overly summative, climax. Ronnie progresses from a stock girl-next-door type to a young woman with considerable emotional depth, and Mitchard understatedly portrays her attempts to navigate romance and other interactions as a Mormon raised very "of the Church." The results are sweet and solid. (May 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Family catastrophes are Mitchard's stock-in-trade, and the latest novel from the best-selling, Oprah-anointed author of The Deep End of the Ocean (1996) is no exception. The Swans are a deeply religious Mormon family living in a remote area of Utah. Twelve-year-old Veronica, "as responsible as any mother," often baby-sits her sweet little sisters while her mother works in her art studio and her father teaches English at the local high school. Engaged in a game of hide-and-seek one afternoon, Veronica emerges from the garden shed where she had been hiding to discover the dead bodies of her sisters, killed within moments of each other by a young man suffering from schizophrenia. Over the next four years, Veronica's parents operate in a haze of grief and confusion; they only start to heal when they make the momentous decision to forgive their daughters' killer, a decision that sends Veronica into an emotional tailspin. She hatches an ill-fated plan to track down the murderer who had "drenched our lives in blood." There is some calculated emotional manipulation here, and some of the characters are overly idealized. Nevertheless, Mitchard tells a compelling, even suspenseful, story; skillfully crafts an authentic narrative voice, and succeeds in humanizing the adherents of a religion that still suffers from widespread negative stereotypes. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1st edition (May 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446578754
• ISBN-13: 978-0446578752
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (97 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,178,340 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jacquelyn Mitchard was born in Chicago. Her first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, was published in 1996, becoming the first selection of the Oprah Winfrey Book Club and a number one New York Times bestseller. Eight other novels, four children's books and six young adult novels followed, including The Midnight Twins, Still Summer, All We Know of Heaven, and The Breakdown Lane. A former daily newspaper reporter, Mitchard now is a contributing editor for Parade Magazine, and frequently writes for such publications as More magazine and Real Simple. Her essays and short stories have been widely anthologized. An adjunct professor in the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Fairfield University, she lives in Wisconsin with her husband and their nine children

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not quite real, May 26, 2006

By 

Anna Bergen (Utah) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cage of Stars (Hardcover)

This book started out fairly good, but after the murders it started going downhill fast. It seems the author didn't research the life of a Mormon very well. Nothing related to mormonism was really true. and How many parents send their 16-17 year old girl away to college without going with her to set up an apartment and find out about the school she goes to? The main story was interesting - the supporting roles were too much of a fairly tale.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A traumatic emotional struggle, April 29, 2006

By 

N. Larrabee (Tarrytown, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cage of Stars (Hardcover)

Veronica Swan's two little sisters are murdered while she is babysitting them. Her life and her parents are turned upside-down as they try to deal with their grief while facing the media. Ronnie's parents struggle with their grief for two years but slowly seek to forgive Scott Early. Ronnie does not understand their decision which forces her to move out. She decides to go to California. It is no coincidence that Scott and his wife are now living there. Ronnie pursues her dream of becoming an EMT. She manages to get a job babysitting for Juliet, Scott and Kelly's baby daughter. Ronnie deftly manages to stay connected to her friends from home and make new ones on the job. The case is one that will stay with you for a long time after finishing the last page. Bravo for such a great masterpiece!

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Babysitters Club Meets Charles Manson, May 23, 2006

By 

Spindrift "A Constant Reader" (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Cage of Stars (Hardcover)

Without the heinous crime this little novel very well could have been shelved as a young adult title...Ronnie is rtdiculously unrealistic...Scott Early(the grim reaper)very thinly sketched...basketball play by play...cutsie instant messaging...first kisses...not to mention painfully unrealistic college admissions...Yale? Harvard? EMT training at 16? I lost all patience with this by the syrupy ending.More than disappointed.