Falling Under

"[H]e willowed past my window, turning his grotesque head towards me, his mouth open in a silent scream." Seventeen-year-old Theia Alderson's first confrontation with the otherness that will define her future is a burning man falling from the sky and disintegrating on her lawn. After that, the dreams begin, about a beautiful young man in a nightmare realm who cannot stay away from her, nor she from him. When he appears in the real world of her California high school as a student named Haden Black, their come hither/get lost dynamic becomes cloaked in ordinary adolescent behaviors, but they both know that much more is at stake. Hayes's first YA novel seasons its Romeo and Juliet theme of separated lovers with horror and languid eroticism. The simplicity of the basic romance plot occasionally struggles to live up to the beautifully wrought images from Theia's dreams, and some details—the cross-dressing surfer psychic, for example—sit oddly with the general tone. Overall, however, this is a satisfying story that hints at more promising dreams to come. Ages 12–up. (Mar.)