Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Oakdale Library | TEEN FICTION POR | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | TEEN FICTION POR | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Dashiell Bohnacker was hell on his family while he was alive. But it's even worse now that he's dead....After her older brother, Dashiell, dies of an overdose, sixteen-year-old Ruby is overcome by grief and longing. She doesn't know that Dashiell's ghost is using her nightly dreams of him as a way to possess her body--and to persuade her twin brother, Everett, to submit to possession as well.Dashiell tells Ruby and Everett that he's returned from the Land of the Dead to tie up loose ends, but he's actually on the run from forces crueler and more powerful than anything the Bohnacker twins have ever imagined.A unique and heart-wrenching exploration of haunting, grief, and loss by the acclaimed author of Vassa in the Night.
Author Notes
SARAH PORTER is a writer, artist, and freelance teacher who lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two cats. She is the author of several books for young adults, including Vassa in the Night. She has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from City College. Look for her online at Sarahporterbooks.com, Facebook.com/sarahporterauthor, and on Twitter as @sarahporterbook.
Reviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Teen twins Ruby and Everett have very different feelings about their older brother's overdose. Closer to Dashiell and often oblivious to his dramatics and manipulations, Ruby is devastated while awed by and jealous of Dash. Everett understands the strain their brother created within the family. Though Dash is dead, he won't leave. Visiting Ruby in her nightly dreams, Dash wheedles her into consenting to ghostly possession. But unsatisfied, the ghost sets his sights on Everett as well. Dash says he's back to tie up loose ends, but is he actually running from something? Flowery language and unusual descriptions pair a gritty, drug- and anxiety-filled reality with a bizarre dreamscape. The story is a cycle of unhappy emotions. Characters experience grief and loss while trying to navigate one warped situation after another, both in the real world and in the Land of the Dead. Dash, the connection among all the characters, is wildly unreliable, and this central trait drives the plot, shaping relationships among, and decisions made by, others both dead and alive. But despite the often unhealthy bonds among characters, Porter offers a poignant consideration of how far we will go for the people we love. Heartache, possession, strong language, sex, murder, and just a hint of incest, all with a supernatural twist-readers searching for something different will certainly find it here. VERDICT An excellent selection for libraries serving teens.-Maggie Mason Smith, Clemson University, SC © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Porter (Vassa in the Night, 2016, etc.) presents a ghost story in which the dead wait on the far side of dreams. Dashiell, a white boy with irresistible gray eyes and strawberry-gold hair, is two months dead. His younger siblings, 16-year-old twins Ruby and Everett, also white but not nearly so beautiful, know this, but they're also starting to realize that he isn't actually gone. He's come back for them. Ruby would do anything to get her beloved older brother back, but Everett isn't quite sure where he stands; both must examine whether Dashiell is a danger to themand perhaps always was. They also have to decide who they are in relation to the force he's forever been in their lives. The story's uneven, with prose that sometimes moves from poetic to overwrought and characters that vacillate between compelling and absurd. Nevertheless, it delivers a deliciously disturbing and engaging portrait of the complexities of familial love and takes readers to the boundaries between innocence and corruption, self-preservation and sacrifice, the dreaming and the dead. Alternating first-person chapters (including all three siblings and the voice of the villain, among others) aid in portraying the nuances at play. A haunting tale of possession that explores the ghostly landscape of dreams and nightmaresbut more importantly, the particular dynamics among siblings, both oppressive and redemptive. (Horror. 14-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* When he was alive, Dashiell Bohnacker's sly charm, gall, and penchant for reckless abandon were so dangerous that his own father wished he'd never been born. It's been just two months since Dash's lethal heroin overdose, and his old habits are already stirring up trouble in the Land of the Dead. After betraying the Land's almost hundred-year-old evil overlord, Aloysius, what's left of Dash (the dead don't retain human forms) is on the run. For now, he's found safety by possessing the body of his ever-adoring sister, Ruby. But Everett, Ruby's twin, is catching on. So too are Aloysius and his fiending horde of dejected specters. While chapters shift between various first-person perspectives, including those of Ruby, Everett, Dashiell, and Aloysius, each of Porter's (Vassa in the Night, 2016) characters remains dynamic, distinct, and vividly realized. In fact, in Porter's hands, even undead, skinless slivers of shadow (particularly one named Mabel) burst to life. The feverish magic of dreams weaves the beauty of Brooklyn into the barren borderlands of the dead, and one person's ability to see something fierce and glorious in another has the power to change the world or, at the very least, a life. A wildly innovative, whip-smart, and utterly spellbinding testament to family, memory, and love and the messes and miracles of each poised to possess legions of readers.--Shemroske, Briana Copyright 2017 Booklist
