Saturday, February 13, 2016

all these things i've done

I just re-read A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin (one of my favorite books of all time) and I remembered that I had another book of hers, a YA novel, that I had picked up several years ago at a library conference. So I dove right in and found it also so very satisfying. Interesting premise: the year is 2083, alcohol is available to anyone for the right price, water is getting scarce and expensive, chocolate and caffeine are illegal. This is in the U.S., not the rest of the world, where the chocolate cartels are making lots of money. But for the Balanchine family, the makers of Special Dark, this is no longer a source of legitimate income and so they have moved into less legal areas of enterprise. Anya (Annie) Balanchine is the 16-year-old protagonist, the 2nd oldest surviving child of Leonyd, the former head of the family. But he was murdered in his own study, with his two young daughters hiding under his desk at the time. His wife was shot while driving the family car; she died and son Leo, Jr. was injured and has never fully recovered his mental functioning. Their legal guardian is Nana, who is being kept alive by machines.
Annie is wrongly charged with poisoning the young man she broke up with after he tried to rape her, and she is sent to a detention center for several months. When she is released, she has to promise the  ambitious new Asst. District Attorney of New York City that she will not date his son, but she doesn't agree to stop being friends with him. Of course this future day Romeo and Juliet fall in love and everyone finds out. When Nana dies, brother Leo becomes the official guardian of his two sisters and Annie is determined to keep a low profile so the Children's Services people have no reason to come sniffing around and figure out that Leo is not really up to the job. Annie has wanted no part of "the family," but when brother Leo is manipulated into shooting his uncle, she has to step up or face losing her brother and the life she has so carefully constructed.
Really well developed characters--major and minor--who will engage adult as well as teen readers. Interesting plot line and plenty of room for the story to continue in the next two installments of this Anya Balanchine trilogy.

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