Dark Water

Dark Water
By Laura McNeal
Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. 287 pgs. Young Adult

Pearl DeWitt lives in California on her uncle's avocado farmer. Amiel is a migrant worker who catches her eye with his miming and juggling skills, and Pearl convinces her uncle to hire him. Amiel doesn't speak, and Pearl is convinced to break through to him, trying to speak to him and leaving him notes, and, once she stumbles across the shack near the river where Amiel is living, visiting him. Frustrated with her life--her father has recently left her mother, leaving Pearl and her mother living in poverty--Pearl pursues this relationship, even though both she and Amiel know it's not one that would be socially acceptable.

I never really connected with the characters in this book; Pearl seemed distant (even though the novel is written in the first person), and I also never really understood her attraction to Amiel. Their relationship just never came alive for me. I think the main thing that kept me reading in this book was the foreshadowing--we find out early on that there's a wildfire and that there are serious consequences, although we don't know what exactly they are,. When they are finally revealed, they provide for what could be an interesting discussion about choices and consequences.

AE