Maybe in Paris

Keira Braidwood’s prom night is a disaster: Jacques, the snide French exchange student she’s infatuated with, mocks her and hooks up with another girl at the dance. But this drama pales next to the attempted suicide of her younger brother, Levi, the next morning, after which he is diagnosed with autism and admitted to a treatment center. Struggling with guilt that she and Levi, once inseparable, have grown apart, Keira invites him to accompany her to Paris: “Maybe if [Levi] sees the world, sees everything it has to offer in a brand-new corner of it, he’ll want to stay in it.” Keira’s romantic observations of Paris, countered by Levi’s cynicism, and their conversations bring their personalities into focus in Christiansen’s debut novel. But despite Keira’s obvious concern for her brother, she often comes across as self-centered (“How could he want to leave me?” she wonders after the suicide attempt), and the siblings being allowed to travel to France on their own after so much upheaval defies believability, despite some late-in-the-novel revelations. Ages 12–up. Agent: Rebecca Podos, Rees Literary. (June)