cover image Nobel Genes

Nobel Genes

Rune Michaels, S&S/Atheneum, $16.99 (192p) ISBN 978-1-4169-1259-0

The unnamed adolescent narrator of this skillful, deeply disconcerting tale lives in a state of constant high-level stress. His mother is manic-depressive and only intermittently in touch with reality. She periodically overdoses on her medications, and to avoid being carted off to a foster home, the boy must claim that their tenant is a friend of the family. He gets solid grades, but his life is made even more difficult because his mother insists that she “wanted a genius baby, so she visited a special sperm bank, to buy me genes from a Nobel Prize winner.” She has also told her son that his grandparents are dead and that he has no other living relatives. Then, when it seems that things couldn’t get more chaotic, he discovers evidence that everything his mother has told him is a lie. Michaels (The Reminder) makes effective use of first-person narration to give readers a highly believable protagonist and a riveting, from-the-trenches look at what it is like to live with a parent who suffers from a serious mental illness. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)