Publisher's Weekly Review
Caletti (The Last Forever) returns with a lovely testament to human resiliency and true love. Mads Murray is staying with her aunt and uncle in Seattle while she pursues her realtor's license in order to work with her mother. It's not what Mads wants, but guilt and loyalty to her mother have trapped her, causing a spiral into depression. While swimming in Lake Union one morning, she discovers a body. Mads becomes fixated on the dead woman, Anna Youngwolf Floyd, and her son, Billy, who is destroyed by grief and finds comfort in the dogs that he "liberates" from unfit owners, the no-kill shelter where he works, and a map from E.L. Konigsburg's From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. When Mads and Billy meet, they are smitten, but Mads is terrified to reveal that she's the one who found his mother. Billy and Mads's romance is tender and sweet, and Caletti's lyrical, sometimes witty narration pulls readers close to both teenagers' tangled emotions in a complex exploration of grief, mental illness, the redemptive power of storytelling, and the hope found in unexpected places. Ages 14-up. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
High-school grad Madison Murray is living in Seattle with her uncles family while reluctantly taking a real-estate course to fast-track a partnership with her controlling mother back in Spokane. Swimming in Lake Union is a source of calm for heruntil the morning she collides with the corpse of a woman who had jumped off a bridge. A traumatized obsession with finding proof that Anna Youngwolf Floyd was a real human being leads Mads to Annas teenage son Billy, who doesnt know Madss connection to the tragedy. They prove to be kindred spirits in several ways. Madss single mother is both her best friend and an emotional drain; Billys only remaining family is his acerbic grandmother, whom he simultaneously loves unconditionally and blames for his mothers depression. Mads fantasizes about stealing her babysitting charge from the childs emotionally neglectful parents; Billy steals abused dogs and gives them better lives at the shelter where he works. Then theres the teens connection to their (and Annas, it turns out) favorite book, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. In heady, evocative present tense with occasional direct-address narration, chapters alternate between Madss and Billys perspectives. This is a powerful, sophisticated love story in which Caletti authoritatively probes the pain of loss, grief, and secrets as well as the idea of fatethose moments that are too large a happening for mere coincidence. katrina hedeen (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Contemporary YA stalwart Caletti's latest focuses on two teens brought together by parental baggage, depression, and coincidence. Recent grad Madison Murray is trapped by her needy mother, and forced to forgo college and take over the family real estate business. Away from Mom for summer in Seattle, she is swimming when she collides with the body of a local woman who committed suicide. Obsessed with the incident, she connects with the woman's teenage son, Billy Youngwolf Floyd, only to find herself falling in love with him. Though the story arc might be familiar to many readers the primary tension hinges on Billy's discovery of Madison's true identity it's the details, as with many of Caletti's other books, that make the novel sing. Chapters alternate between Billy and Madison, deepening the reader's understanding of these two flawed young adults trying to carve out identities apart from their families while constantly playing the role of savior Madison to the girl she babysits, and Billy to the shelter dogs. A moving story about rescuing yourself as well as finally being found.--Barnes, Jennifer Copyright 2016 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-While swimming in a lake in Seattle, Madison finds the body of Anna Youngwolf Floyd. Through her research, she learns that Anna had a son named Billy who is living with his grandma. Billy has read only one book in his life, The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, and he carries the map from the book everywhere because the story was dear to his mother. He and Madison, bound by the tragedy, fall in love as secrets are revealed and questions remain. While Madison struggles with her own demons, Billy's love for her may be just what she needs. C.B.E. Cooney's serious, no-nonsense reading keeps the characters at a distance from each other and portrays their skepticism upon meeting. Slowly Cooney's tone mellows as Madison and Billy warm up to each other. While Caletti delivers perspectives from both characters, Cooney is able to move back and forth between the two with ease. VERDICT Listeners looking for hope or coping with depression will appreciate this audiobook. ["Recommend this tale of overcoming the ogres of depression and loss with the saving graces of sustaining relationships and self-discovery": SLJ 2/16 starred review of the Simon Pulse book.]-Karen Alexander, Lake Fenton High School, Linden, MI © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Two teens meet under unusual and sorrowful circumstances, and together they learn that life is full of both joy and despair. During a morning swim, 18-year-old Mads Murray discovers a woman's body floating in Seattle's Lake Union. When the local news reveals the woman's identity, Mads becomes obsessed with finding proof that Anna Youngwolf Floyd was more than a dead body, that she was a real person with connections to the world. Readers learn Anna's depression drove her to jump off the Aurora Bridge, but Mads, who is no stranger to depression, doesn't know that yet. Mads, in Seattle for the summer for an accelerated real estate course, is the only hope for the survival of her mentally ill mother's business, a fact that fills her with dread. Desperate to know why someone would end her own life, she finds a way to meet Anna's 19-year-old son, kindhearted dog-rescuer Billy, who's ignorant of his connection to Mads. The novel treats depression for what it is: a sometimes-debilitating illness one can't simply snap out of; it's neither a personality flaw nor a shortcoming. Third-person limited perspective alternates between Mads and Billy, resulting in loads of dramatic irony, and Mads and Billy's mutual love of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is a sweet leitmotif. The gently chiding and honest narrative voice keeps its astute focus on the characters' emotions and does not plumb the heritage implied by Anna's name. A cleareyed story about love and loss, mental illness, and taking charge of one's own fate. (Fiction. 15-19) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Essential Maps for the Lost Chapter One Here's the biggest truth right up front: The way Mads and Billy Youngwolf Floyd met was horrible, hideous. Anyone will agree. You will, too. You'll think it's awful. And then maybe beautiful, which is precisely the point. When the story gets sad and terrible, when there are too many mistakes to count, hang on for the beautiful parts. Wait for them. Have some faith they'll arrive. This is also precisely the point: the hanging on. The waiting, the faith. Now. This story starts the same way every morning does, during the spring when Mads meets Billy Youngwolf Floyd. She gets into her swimsuit. She rolls her towel into her bag, sneaks downstairs, careful not to wake up Aunt Claire or Uncle Thomas or Harrison. She edges out the front door, making sure Jinx, their cat, doesn't slip past her on the way out. She starts up Thomas's old truck and heads to the reedy bank of the park by Lake Union. It is early. So early, only weary insomniacs and people catching airplanes are up. Mads was on the swim team at Apple Valley High; for four years they had practice in the steamy old community pool from five thirty to six thirty a.m., and so this is the routine her body still follows. She loved that hour--it had the peace only habits and rituals can give. There was the snap of goggles and the clean burn of chlorine in the air and toes bent over the edge before the plunge. But now the steamy old community pool is gone from her life for good, and so are all the disciplines that keep you from thinking too much. Swim team, orchestra, AP calculus study group--every one of them is finished since she's graduated, a quarter early, too. Her poor cello seems like the high school boyfriend she was supposed to outgrow but who she still kind of likes. Look. Here she is, already at the end of the dock, trying to get her courage up. The waters of the lake are much colder than the community pool. The spring Seattle morning is all hues of gray. The sky needs to figure out whether it's in the mood to turn blue or not, like some people Mads knows who will remain nameless. It smells good by the water, that deep kind of murky, and she inhales a few delicious hits of beneath. A row of ducks paddle by. "Good morning, ladies," she says to them. They appear to have serious business. She waits for them to pass because she's a nice person. Then she kneels on the dock, tests the water with her hand. Brr. The waves are choppy and industrious, but not too crazy to swim in. In spite of the gray and the chop, the water is inviting. But it's keeping secrets, for sure. She dives in. The cold takes her breath away. Now comes the payoff, though. Not the dramatic rush of water past her head and body, not the shock of immersion, but the thing she swims for, the thing that arrives after the drama and the shock--the calm. The blissful burble of being underwater, being away, the moment of otherworldly quiet just before her head rises for air, before the slash of her own strong arms and scissoring legs. Under there, the needs of other people do not press, and the sorrow that's been her most constant companion floats away. Back home, in the water of the community pool, even on the days Coach King's whistle shrieked and her friends shouted above the surface, her own liquid element was like a sweet dream. She could forget those college applications she'd filled out but never sent, and the face of her mother, Catherine Murray, on all those real estate signs, and, too, the way her mother always wept after Mads's father would call from Amsterdam, or else, became furious enough to hide from, like the time she took the kitchen scissors to the family photographs. Swimming is sort of like running away, and Madison Murray has wanted to run away since the first real chance she had, when she was three and got lost on purpose in the Wenatchee Safeway. And here, in a lake in Seattle, five hours from home, where there is only a kayaker off in the distance and a seaplane taking off against the sky, she is exquisitely elsewhere. She is a fish; she is a mermaid. She lives in a coral castle and wears a seaweed crown. The ticking clock bringing that awful deadline is gone, gone, carried off on a ripple. Somewhere up there is Harrison's spying, and her own deep sadness, and her profound desire to kidnap baby Ivy. Down here is some centered soul-version of the real her, the one she's not in real life. Of course, Madison Murray won't feel the same way about any of it, even the water--especially the water--after that day. In some ways, it's a shame. It's a shame, the way you always have to lose stuff to get other stuff. She swims out until she is parallel with the tall, abandoned smokestacks of Gas Works Park at the other end of the lake. She treads water for a while, floats around on her back and watches the sky, nothing she could ever do when Coach King paced poolside in his blue tracksuit. She has plenty of time. She's in no real hurry. She has come to Seattle to take Otto Hermann's real estate licensing course at the community college, which doesn't start until nine. It goes until noon, and then comes babysitting for the Bellaroses until seven. Back home, she's missing all the end-of-high-school rituals that feel far from her life: the prom and the parties and the ordering of caps and gowns, the group of parents taking photos in her friend Sarah's backyard. But she's not missing other things. She's not missing hauling those open house signs out of the back of her mother's Subaru, setting them up on street corners. Or, even worse: I can't believe you're going to leave me home alone all weekend. What am I going to do by myself? Fine. Just go. Or You better not have some fabulous time in Seattle and not come back like your father. The flip side of too much guilt is murderous rage, who knew? She's having fun out here. Houseboats line the perimeter of this lake, and she sees them upside down. They're cheerful and shingled and they rock and sway. There's also a huge upside-down bridge, with tiny upside-down cars. She flips to her stomach. A woman drinks from a cup while standing at the end of a dock as a dog swims laps in front of her. For a second, Madison wishes she were that woman, or maybe even that dog. He looks like he's having the time of his life. Okay, that's it. She's had enough. She decides to head back. Pancakes sound good. Swimming makes her so hungry. Now. Think of this--what if she'd stayed out there just a few minutes more? Or what if she'd gone in just a bit sooner? It can make you believe in the Big Guy Upstairs, even if he seems coldhearted a good lot of the time. She kicks hard, strokes with a power that would've made Coach King cross his arms and smile. She slows when she nears the bank. It's still deep there, but she begins to feel the slip of reeds by her legs. Mads is used to that feeling, the surprising slide of a slick cordy something past her calves, the quick what-was-that of plant or fish. It isn't anything that makes her uneasy. But after this day, even a long time later, years, whenever she thinks of this moment, she will shiver. She ducks her head again. Her eyes are closed. It's best that way near the shore. Sometimes it's safer not to see. She feels--well, it isn't a thud exactly, more of a bump, a wrong bump. She knows that--the wrongness--straight off. Her head has knocked against something, something that gives and then knocks again, and what comes to mind, oddly enough, is a life raft. A tight, inflated life raft. Is she at the dock already? Is this a float, or a buoy? She has an irrational image--that dog from the dock. She and he are colliding. This is his thick, giving side. But she knows it isn't a float or a buoy. Certainly, it isn't that dog. Nothing she says to herself is true, of course. You always know when you're lying to yourself. Already she can feel the hair twined around her fingers. Madison rises to the surface, opens her eyes, and sees her. She is so white she almost glows, and her face is vacant and still as the moon in a night sky, and when Mads shouts and flails, she drags the woman's head under. It feels awful to do that, and so sorry, the details are terrible, but it's the truth of this story. Mads's fingers are caught in the woman's hair, and her face dunks and dunks again until Mads untangles them. A different person, not Madison but Madison, is making sense of this. She is crying out and flailing, but her brave and functioning self (who is she? Mads wonders) is putting the pieces together: the lake, the bridge, despair. Mads's terrified self tries to get away from this horrible, sickening body, while her strong self, hidden before now, has seen a woman. An actual human being. This is the self that understands things about the water--the way it can swallow you, keep you concealed, maybe forever. This rational one, she is the person who reaches under the woman's arms and grasps her shoulders, while the other Madison grimaces and pretends not to feel the cold flesh. Mads is now the lifeguard she was from age fourteen on, at the Apple Valley Estates neighborhood pool. She strokes and tows, strokes and tows that body, the way she never had to in the sparkling cement crater filled with shrieking toddlers in water wings and teenagers showing off. The woman needs help, the terrified Madison thinks, while the other Madison knows this: She is beyond help. Mads hears a strong, clear voice. She realizes it's coming from inside her: Bring this woman to shore. Bring her and bring yourself to shore. She will. She has to, because the woman, the body, will disappear if they don't make this horrifying swim together. Madison kicks past the waves with her strong legs. The woman's own legs float and bob against her. Soon the two of them are near the bank, where Mads can stand. There are rocks underfoot; slimy, slippery rocks, and Mads is out of breath. The reeds are waist high, and the body skirts along their surface like a sled on ice. The woman has gotten so, so much heavier now. Mads sees that her body is bruised, splotchy, banged-up purple. She faces the woman's eyes, which she's been avoiding. They stare up toward the clouds as if they can look past them. Whatever has brought the woman to this morning's fate--it disgusts Mads. The woman herself does. Mads is angry with her, for causing this. But Mads's heart is sick and heavy with grief, too. She hauls the top half of the body onto the bank, as far as she can. And then she screams. She screams and screams, the way you do in bad dreams, the way she always feared she might have to someday for a different reason, a desperate-mother reason. Things happen fast after that. Suddenly, there is a man wearing a tie, and a young woman in jogging shorts, and then the spinning lights of a police car, and then an ambulance. A heavy blanket gets tossed onto her shoulders, and in spite of the sun now showing through the clouds, she needs that blanket, because she is freezing. Her own body is doing tricks--shaking out of control, her knee a strange entity that's clacking up and down like drumsticks on a cymbal. "Maddie! Mads!" It's Aunt Claire, running to where Mads sits on the ground. Somewhere in there Mads called Claire, but she barely remembers that. It feels like she has been there for a week and for a second. There's the thwack thwack thwack of a helicopter overhead, announcing tragedy. Two men carry a stretcher. The body is on it, covered in a deep-green plastic. There's the slam-slam of doors. That's it, Madison thinks. This nightmare, my relationship with that woman, is over. Of course, she is wrong. She is so wrong. Because traumatic events like this, acts like that, spread far and go deep. The water soaks delicate layers; the waves crash and crash again. So many people will break and change and stay changed. Awful, yes? Yes. But don't misunderstand. While, true, this is a story about the horrible things people do (the way hurt people hurt people, if you want to get self-helpy about it), it is more importantly about what happens next. This is what happens next as she rises from that grass with Claire's arm around her: Madison sees that dog. He is back up on the dock now. He shakes himself off on the woman with the coffee cup, who is watching all the commotion. He sits right down, as if hoping for a treat. See? Life goes forward. More, much more, will happen after this. Things involving maps and books and true love and tragedy, tragedy like you wouldn't believe. But fine things, too. The best ones. Even if it might not seem so at the time, even if there is something as horrible as a body and police and cold, life has some beautiful surprises up its sleeve, and don't you forget it. Excerpted from Essential Maps for the Lost by Deb Caletti All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.