December 22, 2008
Set in the author's native Australia in the early 1980s, this sensitive debut novel weaves and bobs between two time frames as the narrator, Jennifer, tries to understand the death of her older sister, 14-year-old Beth, who fell from a water tower. In the prevailing view, Beth was wild: she had sex with strangers and fell asleep, drunk, in neighbors' yards. But the girls' grandmother believes that Beth once saw an angel and had a bit of grace in her ever since, and that her acts were her attempts to save people. Jennifer sees evidence of both, remembering that “the more glowed, the wilder she got.” Trying to understand Beth's decline and to cope with her own grief, which has deprived her of her singing voice, Jennifer searches for clues in a box of Beth's belongings. Tangents may confuse; at times, the litany of small details and anecdotes burden the plot. But the metaphors embedded in the story and the luscious prose ( a teacher's eyes are “a flat gray-green and impenetrable as a crocodile's”) will hold readers until the moving conclusion. Ages 14–up.
July 1, 2009
Gr 10 Up-This complex novel explores the fragility of innocence and the existence of miracles in everyday life. Jenny, a prepubescent girl in an Australian mining town, retraces the last year of her teenage sisters life in an effort to understand what appeared to be Beths descent into moral degradation but was perhaps actually her acceptance of martyrdom after seeing an angel. Told through Jennys naive and trusting voice, the narrative is nonetheless rich and languid, with the natural world awash in similes, the manmade world brimming with specific-pop culture references of 1980s Australia, and metaphors on nearly every pageof birds, fairies, winged insects, or angels. While Jennys voice evokes characters in classic preteen literatureLois Lowrys "A Summer to Die" (Houghton, 1977) and Katharine Patersons "Jacob Have I Loved" (HarperCollins, 1980) come to mindthere is a truly adult sensibility to this story, especially in the brutality of the sexual situations in which Beth becomes involved, that recommends it to sophisticated readers. This is an unusually literary book that some readers will find deeply meaningful and beautiful, while others will roll their eyes at the preponderance of metaphorical imagery."Rhona Campbell, Washington, DC Public Library"
Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
April 20, 2009
Ten-year-old Jennifer has lost her singing voice and hopes she can find it again in the box of her dead sister Beth's possessions. At 14, Beth was a fragile soul living a wild life in their small, Australian mining town until the day she fell from a water tower. Now Jennifer seeks to make sense of her death. Why It Is for Us: Foxlee's first novel scored quite a blurb from best-selling author Marcus Zusak (The Book Thief): "Sometimes you read a book so special you want to carry it around for months." Foxlee deserves the praise. Her acute awareness of place and character is demonstrated in elegiac prose that evokes one family's sharp grief at the loss of their teenage daughter.
Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from January 1, 2009
Grades 8-12 *Starred Review* Set in a small Australian town in the early 1980s, this shining debut novel charts a young girls grief after the death of her older sister. Months before Beths fatal fall, 10-year-old Jennifers beautiful singing voice disappears. When and why it got stuck forms a central mystery that unifies Jennifers narrative, which loops fluidly between past and present. Each clue leads back to events from the tumultuous year before Beth died, and Jennifers search for her voice becomes a larger search for how her beloved sister was lost and what it means to leave childhood behind. In this sensitive, original story, Foxlee explores familiar elements: the warmth and suffocation of living in Nowheresville; the chasm of misunderstanding between parents and adolescent children. Jennifer loves the comfort and solidity of facts, and she collects information like currency, but her observations are also poetic and washed with magic realism. Not all the plots tangents are well integrated, but the story works as memory does, with skips, gaps, and sudden, piercingmoments that are as illogical and illuminating as a dream. With heart-stopping accuracy and sly symbolism, Foxlee captures the smallways thathumans reveal themselves, the mysterious intensity of female adolescence, and the surreal quiet of a grieving house, which slowly and with astonishing resilience fills again with sound and music.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)
July 1, 2009
Set in a poignantly evoked 1980s Australian mining town, Foxlee's graceful first novel recounts a family tragedy. Eleven-year-old Jennifer's narrative begins after the death of her older sister Beth. The story flashes between the present and the preceding year, encompassing Beth's increasingly disaffected adolescence. Foxlee creates a moving, believable portrait of a teenage girl falling into destructive behavior.
(Copyright 2009 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
March 1, 2009
"[Nanna] told me things that her mother had told her, for instance, if you are unhappy with an embroidered flower you should unstitch it. It is the same with life. If you are unhappy you must unstitch it until you find the wrong part and make it right." Set in a poignantly evoked, sun-scorched 1980s Australian mining town, Foxlee's graceful first novel recounts a tragedy that occurred despite family members' efforts to "unstitch." Eleven-year-old Jennifer's narrative begins after the death of her older sister Beth and flashes between the present and the preceding year, which encompasses Beth's increasingly disaffected adolescence. Foxlee's vaguely mystical imagery seems forced at times, and her periodic shifts to Jennifer's neighbors' points of view are more distracting than revelatory. Nevertheless, she creates a moving, believable portrait of a teenage girl falling into destructive behavior (lying, drinking, having casual sex, etc.) without a straightforward reason why. Was Beth, as Nanna insists, communing with angels? Was she, as Foxlee occasionally hints, too beautiful and fragile to survive? After Beth dies, Jennifer and her best friend sift through a box of Beth's belongings, looking for clues; but they can't really piece together any answers. Perhaps the best answer is that every loss is something of a mystery.
(Copyright 2009 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)