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Material Type | Library | Call Number | Suggested Age | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... Hurricane Public Library | GRO | Young Adult | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Everyone in Shallow Pond knows the Bunting Sisters. Nobody knows their Secrets. Annie is the oldest. The sickly one who gave up on her own life so she could raise her sisters after their parents died. Gracie is the wild child. She wants a man so bad, she'll do anything it takes to get one. Barbara, the youngest, hates being constantly mistaken for her sisters. She wants nothing more than to finish senior year and get out of Shallow Pond--before she succumbs to her unwanted attraction to the new boy in town, Zach Faraday. When Annie's enigmatic illness takes a turn for the worse, Barbara begins to search for the truth of her family's past. But Shallow Pond offers only lies and deceit. The one thing Barbara can trust is her halting connection to Zach--an unsettling bond that may be the answer to a mystery that doesn't want to be solved.
Author Notes
A former children's librarian and newspaper editor,Alissa Grossois the author of the young adult novels Popularand Ferocity Summer. She is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and currently works as a sales consultant for a book distributor. Grosso grew up in New Jersey, where she graduated from Lenape Valley Regional High School, and earned a bachelor's degree in English from Rutgers University. She now lives in the Philadelphia area.
Reviews (2)
Kirkus Review
Three sisters feel trapped in their tiny rural town, unable to find a way out. Barbara, the youngest, can't stand it when her teachers confuse her with her older sisters. They may look alike, but they have completely different personalities. She lives with her two older sisters, troublemaking Gracie and Annie, the oldest, who acts as mother to Barbara. When Gracie starts dating Cameron, Annie's old flame, Barbara feels disgusted. She also finds herself reluctantly attracted to Zach, a drop-dead handsome newcomer in town claiming to be an orphan living off a large trust fund. As events continue, Barbara begins to believe that her family is not as it seems, only staying in the boring little town of Shallow Pond to hide a skeleton in the closet. Little does she know that soon she will discover the true, far more disturbing reason for their exile from the rest of the world, one that verges on science fiction and touches on a serious ethical issue. Once she reveals the shocking secret, however, Grosso uses it mainly to support the narrative surrounding Barbara's emotional troubles, glossing over or ignoring major scientific essentials and allowing the question of ethics to evaporate into the relationship narrative. The three sisters are memorable characters, but by introducing science treated so superficially, the author renders her plotline as shallow as her pond. (Fiction. 12 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The three Bunting sisters, of rural Shallow Pond, Pennsylvania, are orphans. Twenty-six-year-old Annie serves as mother, shelving her own dreams of college to raise her sisters. Twenty-one-year-old wild child Gracie is impulsive and erratic, always after male attention. Narrator and high-school senior Barbara is a focused sleuth intent on figuring out certain family mysteries while trying to avoid being paired up with ridiculously handsome new student Zach Faraday. What Barbara discovers is shocking indeed, for all three sisters are clones of their dead mother, and Zach is a clone of their (presumed dead) father, who is desperately trying to re-create his romance through the next generation. This cautionary tale of parents doing anything to live vicariously though their children lacks subtlety but rolls along at lightning speed with more than a few twists for a quick read. Grosso raises deep issues of identity and ethics that ultimately are more interesting than the often one-dimensional characters, but the swift pace will hold readers through a surprising ending.--Carton, Debbie Copyright 2010 Booklist
