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Learn more- Sixteen-year-old Elvira's mother is dead. Elvira is sad, of course, but not so sad as her younger sister Spinny. Spinny is afraid their father, Luke, will be heartbroken, but Elvira knows better -- after all, Luke has her to take her mother's place. But then Luke brings home a pretty young woman and introduces her as his fiancee, and Elvira decides that she will stop at nothing to stop her father's marriage . . .
About the book: YA The adolescent narrator of this novellette admires and emulates Poe's thrillers in this bizarre modern story which harks back to the 19th Century in style and setting. Elvira, 16, is anorexic, although that fact only slowly becomes obvious. She is also obsessed with her father and spends most of her time in their 15th-Century manse in intellectual pursuits for his approval. He, a lay theologian, has lost one wife to illness and loses his fiancee to an accident for which Elvira had wished and tried to plan, but in which she really had no hand. Her younger sister eats constantly and thinks the house is haunted. This is not a Stephen King spine chiller, but rather a close look at a psychological disaster within a family. Kids who enjoy Poe may enjoy this modern derivation, as well as the apparently first-hand insights into anorexia and obesity which show how oblivious the victim is to the illness. Thought-provoking, short reading. Dorcas Hand, Episcopal High School, Bellaire
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