cover image Dear Reader

Dear Reader

Mary O’Connell. Flatiron, $17.99 (304p) ISBN 978-1-250-07708-0

Columbia-bound senior Flannery Fields is anxious to trade Connecticut for New York City. When her AP English teacher disappears, leaving behind her purse and a worn copy of Wuthering Heights, Flannery sets out on a whirlwind quest to find her. Flannery is stunned to find that the book has inexplicably transformed into Miss Sweeney’s diary, with new entries popping up as the teacher searches N.Y.C. for a young man named Brandon, who Flannery discovers has been killed in action in Afghanistan. As she chases an increasingly unbalanced Miss Sweeney through the city, Flannery is joined by Heath Smith, a charming boy on a gap year, who seems oddly similar to Wuthering Heights’s Heathcliff. O’Connell (The Sharp Time) neatly juxtaposes Flannery’s anticipation for the “adventure, reinvention, [opportunity] to become someone new” with Miss Sweeney’s journal entries, illuminating the complex chaos of life and love, demonstrating that seemingly inconsequential choices and people can have lingering effects. The use of Wuthering Heights intensifies the impact of Flannery and Miss Sweeney’s corresponding journeys; even readers who haven’t read the classic will find significance in the parallels. Ages 12–up. [em]Agent: Lisa Bankoff, ICM. (May) [/em]