The outcast/coming-of-age genre often seduces first-time authors and Klein is no exception. The bulk of the book consists of the diary entries of a mentally ill 16-year-old during her junior year at Brangwyn School, an exclusive girls' boarding school, in the late '60s. These are framed by the observations of the same woman, now 46 and healthy, as she looks back on her severely disturbed youth through the pages of her journal. Her father, a poet, committed suicide and her grief-stricken mother sent her away to school because she could not attend to her own pain and her child simultaneously. Her best friend is Lucy, a pale blonde girl who would rather follow than lead. But a new girl named Ernessa worms in on the girls' friendship, causing the narrator to grow increasingly obsessive about Lucy and eventually fearful for Lucy's life. To offset Lucy's wavering loyalty, the narrator turns to other girls for comfort, including rebellious Charley, philosophical Dora, lovelorn Claire and sensitive Sofia. Despite the political, social and wartime upheaval of the era, the school remains an island where these girls play out their own miniature dramas and rebellions: as the narrator puts it, "the rest of the world seems very far away." The diary form and the already self-conscious narrator's increasingly paranoid voice add to the feeling of claustrophobia. Aside from waning curiosity about what is real and what is a figment of the narrator's imagination, most readers will be left with little to hold on to.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* The unnamed narrator of Klein's first novel is a studious, thoughtful 16-year-old at an elite boarding school in the late '60s. Her closest friend is her sweet, friendly roommate, Lucy, who navigates the school's social system with ease. The arrival of quiet, mysterious Ernessa upsets the balance between the friends when Ernessa befriends and seemingly takes Lucy away from the narrator. The narrator, absorbed by the books and stories she is reading in her English class, begins to resent and loathe Ernessa. Thanks to reading LeFanu's vampire story "Carmilla" and other tales, and to Ernessa's odd behavior and Lucy's mysterious wasting illness, the narrator begins to suspect that Ernessa is a vampire. As Lucy's inexplicable illness becomes grave, and two mysterious deaths shock the school, she becomes ever more uneasy. How can she stop Ernessa? The diary format of Klein's story gives it immediacy, and a menacing atmosphere permeates it. Klein's fanciful heroine, driven by her jealousies and imagination, is a compelling informant on the complex relationships of girls in boarding schools and on the parallels between obsession and the apprehension of the supernatural. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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