Dangerous Neighbors [Hardcover]

Beth Kephart (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 24, 2010

It is 1876, the year of the Centennial in Philadelphia. Katherine has lost her twin sister Anna in a tragic skating accident.  One wickedly hot September day, Katherine sets out for the exhibition grounds to cut short the haunted life she no longer wants to live.

Filled with vivid detail that artfully brings the past to life, National Book Award nominee Beth Kepart's DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS is a timeless and finely crafted novel about betrayal and guilt, hope and despair, love, loss, and new beginnings.

Publisher’s Weekly Starred Review
Set in Philadelphia against the back-drop of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition (the first World’s Fair in the U.S.), this atmospheric novel traces the sentiments of grief-stricken Katherine, whose identical twin sister, Anna, died in a tragic accident earlier in the year.  As the novel opens, Katherine, who feels responsible for Anna’s death, has decided to take her own life.  Again and again, she is drawn to the exhibition grounds.  Here, futuristic marvels and unexpected events-including a disastrous fire- detain her from completing her suicidal mission.  Losing herself in a throng of strangers, she examines her past, recalling the development of her sister’s secret romance with a “dangerous neighbor” and the final sequence of events that led to Anna’s death.  Conjuring sharp, meticulously detailed images of fair exhibitions (“The wonders of the world slide past.  Parisian corsets cavorting on their pedestals.  Vases on lacquered shelves.  Folding beds.  Walls of cutlery.  The sweetest assortment of sugar-colored pills, all set to sail on a yacht”), Kephart (The Heart is Not a Size) evokes a tantalizing portrait of love, remorse, and redemption.  Ages 12-up.  (Aug.)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 6-10–Although born 20 minutes after her twin sister, 17-year-old Katherine has always been the rescuer, the watcher, the caretaker of the two. When readers meet her, she is disconsolate from Anna's death the winter before. She has plans to end her own life as her guilt and loneliness can't seem to be assuaged. The story of her emotional journey is set against a colorful cacophony of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Katherine wanders through throngs of tourists, buskers, and hawkers. Her first plan, to jump from the rooftop of a balconied tower in the “Paris by Night” Colosseum, is stopped by Bennett, the baker's boy whom Anna had loved. As Katherine struggles with her memories of the once-complete relationship with her sister that was forced to make room for a third, her feelings of alienation and her failure to protect the one she cherished most intensify, and she is drawn again and again into the false world of the Exhibition. Ultimately, it is through chance meetings with “dangerous neighbors” and caring strangers that Katherine begins to consider the possibilities of her own life going forward. Her forgiveness of Bennett and herself gives birth to a sense of hope and helps this tenderly crafted story end with a positive spin. Kephart has painted a vivid picture of the Exhibition. Readers can practically smell the roasted peanuts and feel the bruise of crowds shoving by as she creates a lively setting against which a quiet, desperate struggle is played out.Karen Elliott, Grafton High School, WI
© Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

Set against the backdrop of the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, where new innovations in ice-cream and elevators were presented to a rapt nation, National Book Award finalist Kephart’s novel tells a powerful story of twin sisters, Anna and Katherine, who are warned by their father to take care of each other and to avoid their dangerous neighbors. Convinced of their invincibility, the girls ignore their parent’s cautions, and Anna begins a surreptitious love affair with a baker’s son, a romance that isolates Katherine, who gradually refuses to be responsible for her sister’s welfare. Kephart gradually unwinds the tragic story, which begins with Katherine’s grief over her separation from her sister, a separation that is only fully explained well into the story. Beautifully crafted and carefully researched, Kephart’s challenging novel captures the essence of a single historic event, including its seamy underbelly, while exploring the universality of love, grief, guilt, and the mysterious twin connection. Grades 8-12. --Frances Bradburn

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: EgmontUSA (August 24, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1606840800
• ISBN-13: 978-1606840801
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,033,791 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Following the publication of five memoirs and FLOW, the autobiography of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, I've had the great pleasure of turning my attention to young adult fiction. UNDERCOVER and HOUSE OF DANCE were both named a best of the year by Kirkus and Bank Street. NOTHING BUT GHOSTS, A HEART IS NOT A SIZE, and DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS were critically acclaimed. In October YOU ARE MY ONLY will be released by Egmont USA. Next summer, Philomel will release SMALL DAMAGES. I am at work on a prequel to DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS, a novel for adults, and a memoir about teaching. Please visit my blog: http://beth-kephart.blogspot.com/

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Small novel that packs a big emotional punch August 24, 2010

By Megan Snider VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Beth Kephart's DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS is a slip of a novel that packs an emotional punch, and I don't think I was ready for the raw glimpse into what it really means to be "my sister's keeper." At less than 200 pages, the novel feels like a Polaroid snapshot -- and focuses exclusively on what has brought Katherine to a rooftop with no intention of returning to the ground the same way she came up.

From the start, Kephart's lyrical language had me completely entangled in the twins' story. As readers, we know Anna is gone from the very beginning -- but the circumstances remain a mystery. I liked that the facts were revealed slowly, like the unfolding of paper, and that we're introduced to each character in their own, sweet time. I've yet to encounter another novel that so perfectly captures the painful, heartache-inducing way in which sisters must grapple with one another moving forward in their lives -- and, in the process, pulling away from one another. With a sister three years my junior, I felt every word of what Kephart expressed about Katherine's perception of Bennett as a threat to the safe, secure and happy private life she had with Anna.

DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS is a novel of change; of growing up; of grief. It's Katherine's story of attempting to emerge from the darkest part of her life, but it's Anna's story, too -- Anna's vitality; her joy; but her cruelty, too. It's a glimpse at life in Philadelphia just a little more than a decade after the end of the American Civil War, and a look at what it means to try and protect those we hold dear. Can we really be our sisters' keepers, the ones on whom they rely? Is it fair to even ask that of a sibling -- that we care more for someone else as much as, if not more, than we care for ourselves?

After finishing the book, I closed it and sat back for a beat or two. I really liked it, yes, and found myself tearing through it at break-neck speed -- especially when I thought I was getting close to learning what really happened to Anna. But after it was all over, I couldn't help but feel vaguely unsatisfied . . . mostly because I wanted to learn more about William, a sort of 1876-version of an "animal whisperer," and the burgeoning feelings Katherine had for him. I wanted to see Katherine happy, particularly after everything she'd been through, but I received only a hint of the resolution I sought.

Still, that didn't cloud my enjoyment of the novel as a whole. Though certainly not an upbeat, wild ride, DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS is a deeply introspective, thought-provoking story filled with memorable details and dimensional characters. It's also my first read from Kephart, a popular young adult author, and I definitely don't intend for it to be my last.

Fans of historical fiction will find a philosophical story with excellent atmosphere and historical details that had me Googling the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition on my lunch break. Though the book is focused on two teenage girls, I hope that won't dissuade readers not accustomed to checking out teen fiction from picking this one up. There's nothing pedestrian about the writing, which was quite literary, and it makes a fine addition to the young adult historical fiction genre. More than worth the afternoon it will take you to pour through it . . . and made me want to clutch my own sister a little tighter.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and emotional, but not memorable August 27, 2010

By The Compulsive Reader VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Katherine is lost. She and her twin sister Anna used to be inseparable, so after Anna's death, she is determined to follow her. Katherine doesn't have much regard for her father who is kind and good but doesn't understand her, or her mother who has always been absent, taken away by her suffragist pursuits. And she certainly pays no attention to Bennett, Anna's beloved, and the one who stole her away from Katherine. So she is left to wander Pennsylvania and the marvels of the 1876 Centennial Fair, wishing for death, until one day and one event brings her life into perspective.

Dangerous Neighbors is a brief but affecting read that explores the grief a sibling can feel and realistically portrays one girl's thoughts of suicide, a subject infrequently addresses in the time period. Kephart alternates between scenes that detail Katherine's grief after Anna's death and moments in the months leading up to the event that depict the girls slowly drifting apart as Anna becomes more interested in her romance with baker boy Bennett and Katherine is left feeling abandoned. Though Kephart does go into some detail about the Centennial Fair and the exhibits, Katherine's emotions and her heavy feelings of anger, guilt, and resentment dominate the book and almost bog it down in some areas, and the climax in which she decides to live wasn't so very memorable. However, Kephart gives readers a hopeful ending, with many possibilities in Katherine's future, including a friend and perhaps the means to understand her sister and her actions. Dangerous Neighbors is an interesting and quick read, full of heart and feeling.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Just Lovely August 24, 2010

By Deborah VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

First off, I'd like to say that I absolutely LOVE the cover of this book. The color is just absolutely beautiful. I love finding bird eggs on the ground or in a nest because of the wonderful colors that they are and it's lovely to see it replicated on the cover of this book. The cover gives way to the story inside which is just as beautiful and fragile as the egg portrays.

Katherine and Anna are twins and best friends. They have always been there for each other from the beginning. Then Anna begins to grow apart from Katherine who is not quite ready to let her sister go. The story starts with Anna's tragic accident already happening and the reader must work their way backwards to find out what actually happen. It's a very moving story as you read about Katherine's feeling throughout the book and how much her sister meant to her because as twins, they always have and will be a part of each other.

I really loved the historical aspect of the novel. I have always found world's fairs to be wonderful places to set stories especially after I studied more about them in my graduate classes. Kephart makes the Philadelphia's fair come to live and I could picture myself there, hearing the crowds and seeing all the spectacles. It must have been a grand time to live in an age where technology was so new and exciting.

The only small qualm I had with the book is that I felt it ended rather abruptly. The book is rather short, at less than 200 pages. By the time I got to the end I felt that I was now finally beginning to understand Katherine, and then the book ends. I would have liked more with her and also to find out more about Bennett and William. Both of the boys seemed like they had more to their stories but we barely get a glimpse of them before the book is finished. However even with the shortness of the book, Kephart still packs a mighty heavy punch with this book. It is deeply engrossing and very emotional. There needs to be more YA like this and I really do like YA historical fiction. Here's to another beautiful read from Beth Kephart and I'm looking forward to more from her.