cover image The Candy Darlings

The Candy Darlings

Christine Walde, . . Houghton/Graphia, $8.99 (310pp) ISBN 978-0-618-58969-2

Canadian writer Walde's twisted debut tells the not-so-sweet story of two teenage girls in a new town, and their angst-ridden relationships at home, at school and with the world at large. The book's themes recall those of Adele Griffin's Amandine and Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye , given the uneasy relationship between the duo and also their solidarity when faced with the cruel and beautiful popular clique. The role of the candy cited in the title seems elusive: as the novel opens, the unnamed narrator alludes to her own aversion to sugar ever since her terminally ill mother could only tolerate an I.V. full of glucose. But when the protagonist, midway through the novel, suddenly does eat candy, the author treats it as a non-event. The other key character, Megan Chalmers, constantly sucks on hard candy while spinning bizarre tales that border on the pornographic (one describes a store clerk who suggests that a girl perform fellatio on him in exchange for candy), and she disappears for days at a time. The subplots seem piled on at the expense of character development, and the ending leaves many holes (is Megan's mother a prostitute on the run, as Megan's stories suggest? why do she and her mother leave town?). Unfortunately, the framing device ("I could tell others the truth. My truth. The way things really happened... I could write my own story") likely won't convince readers that the narrator has resolved these issues for herself either. Ages 16-up. (Sept.)