[Printz pick]
Vera’s best friend, Charlie, has died—five months after their friendship has fallen apart. Charlie comes to Vera in strange and sometimes enlightening visions, and Vera knows there is more to his death than what the authorities state.King takes us on Charlie and Vera’s journey as they grew up together, struggling through Charlie’s parent’s abusive situation and Vera’s mother leaving when she was twelve. When Charlie takes up with a rough crowd, Vera is left behind, working full-time and trying to stay below everyone’s radar.
King does a remarkable job of character sketching—especially of Vera and Charlie. The other characters introduced in first person, Ken Dietz (Vera’s dad) and The Pagoda (a piece of structure located in the town in which they all live), are not as fully fleshed out and can be somewhat distracting. Vera is wholly sympathetic and it is easy to become enmeshed in her thoughts and actions, even when they are infuriatingly teenage-like. While King does manage to drag out the mystery of Charlie’s death perhaps a bit too much, the ending is fairly satisfactory.
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