The Anatomy of Wings

Her sister Beth is gone, and Jenny wants to understand why it all happened. At ten years old, she knows no one will tell her the truth, so she is determined to discover it for herself. Her search begins with a blue cardboard box. She plans to sift through the things Beth left behind and find clues to explain why Beth changed. There are ballet slippers, a broken heart pendant, black rubber-band bracelets, and an address. Jenny uses them to recall memories and events that led to her sister's death. Woven in among Jenny's memories are the struggles of the rest of the family. Some are part of the lies and deceit that contributed to Beth's downfall. Others are part of the efforts to stop her downward spiral. Their parents tried to control their wayward daughter when things began to head in the wrong direction. They tried to limit her activities and monitor her friendships, but Beth used Jenny and anyone else she could to concoct alibis that allowed her to carry on with her dangerous life. As in many stories with a mystery, Jenny stumbles across more questions than answers as her family crumbles around her. THE ANATOMY OF WINGS is the first novel for author Karen Foxlee. She shows great creative promise with her unique characters and fierce emotion. She captures the turmoil of those left behind after a tragedy, and the tremendous effort required to hold life together. Readers may find it challenging at times to separate the different threads of this complex story, but if they are up to the challenge, they will find Foxlee is an author to keep an eye on in the future. Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

Native Australian Karen Foxlee's richly drawn debut novel, THE ANATOMY OF WINGS, has the unfortunate quality of having two main characters who are equally strong yet dueling to dominate the spotlight. The catch? One's alive; one's dead. But thankfully for readers, the more we find out about the dead one (13-year-old Beth Day), the more we understand about the one who's left behind (Beth's 10-year-old sister, Jennifer). The story begins as Jenny and her best friend, Angela, are rifling through a forbidden box at the top of Jenny's mother's closet. Inside, they find clues to Beth's death --- all ordinary objects yet each a key to Beth's downturn. "There were two blue plastic hair combs. A tough girl's black rubber-band bracelet. A newspaper advertisement for a secretarial school folded in half. A blond braid wrapped in gladwrap. A silver necklace with a half-a-broken-heart pendant. An address, written in a leftward-slanting hand, on a scrap of paper. Ballet shoes wrapped in laces." As the narrative unfolds, the story behind each of these objects is revealed --- the beloved braid of hair their mother chopped from Beth's head while angrily wrestling with her on the kitchen floor; the flyer for secretarial school: a last-ditch effort to keep Beth from getting into trouble; the necklace worn by Beth and her semi-boyfriend/bed-partner Marco, the 17-year-old bad boy from across town. Watching Beth morph from responsible daughter to wild child hell-bent on doing what she wants is infuriating and depressing but realistic nonetheless. On a basic level, Foxlee hasn't covered much new ground here --- the story structure is a bit reminiscent of Alice Sebold's THE LOVELY BONES --- but that won't stop readers from identifying with Jenny. The 10-year-old's frustration and curiosity about why her sister won't just cooperate or "get better" is palpable on every page. And typical of any younger sibling, the love she feels for Beth and the devotion to keeping her secrets safe is counterbalanced with her guilty urge to tell the truth about what's actually happening so that Beth can get the help she needs before it's too late. There are other nice touches as well. The chapters about the other people living on Beth and Jenny's street, although potentially jarring at first, are exceptionally detailed and provide additional context to the world the girls and their parents inhabit. Jenny's obsession with relaying facts about random things, while sometimes distracting to the story and perhaps overdone as a storytelling tactic, add depth to her character and balance out her propensity for letting her imagination get the best of her. And Nanna's character? Well, she's just a hoot. THE ANATOMY OF WINGS is stuffed with all sorts of ingredients that make teenagers --- especially broody ones --- link arms in jaded unity. Drunken parties are thrown and cigarettes are smoked. Boys are slept with too early. Threats are made about running away. Exasperated parents lay down the l