By Beth Kephart Chronicle Books, 2015. 271 pages. Young Adult Fiction.
“Nadia Cara is in Florence, Italy, with her family because her professor father is researching the 1966 flood, but Nadia herself is in trouble—she has turned into a kleptomaniac and she feels detached from everything, except for an elusive Italian boy whom no one but herself has seen."
The main reason I read Beth Kephart is because her prose is so beautiful it seems like poetry. Here Kephart writes in short, staccato (almost poetic) sentences meant to get the reader into the head of a teenager experiencing the beginning effects of dementia. The story is set in present-day Italy, but told with flashbacks five years earlier to the main character’s childhood in Philadelphia. Combining all of this with an unreliable narrator is tricky, but the story still flows in a way that you can understand and empathize with the main character. The overarching message of the strength of family and friendship left me feeling hopeful.
MB
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