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Summary
Summary
Fourteen-year-old Susan Backstrom seems to have a charmed life-she's smart and beautiful, the only child of wealthy, attentive parents. But there are secrets inside her expensive house that Susan would never tell. One day, at the library, she overhears their housekeeper's son talking with some friends about sneaking into a nearby abandoned house. Much to her own surprise, Susan very much wants to join them-and soon she's part of the best secret of all. The house has a resident teenage ghost. More important than that, the house itself is a living, supernatural thing, able to serve as a magic conductor. With the help of five new friends-three humans, one ghost, and House, Susan has what she needs to transform her life, if she dares. A Stir of Bones is the stand-alone prequel to acclaimed fantasist Nina Hoffman's award-winning adult novels A Red Heart of Memories and Past the Size of Dreaming. It is every bit as remarkable, warm, and heartwrenching.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-Susan Backstrom, the protagonist of this haunting and harrowing novel, appears to have everything. In reality, she is a prisoner of her abusive father, who beats his wife whenever he disapproves of his daughter's behavior. In a rare moment of freedom at the library, Susan overhears a group of kids talking about entering a haunted house and convinces them to let her go with them. With these new friends, she discovers that the house has a life of its own. Susan forms a close bond with the house and with Nathan, the ghost of a boy who committed suicide in it. When her father's menacing becomes too much, she decides to kill herself to be with Nathan and the house forever, and it is up to her friends to stop her and the house to show her how to use her newfound powers, derived from a piece of Nathan's bone, to heal rather than hurt. In this prequel to Hoffman's adult novels A Red Heart of Memories (1999) and Past the Size of Dreaming (2001, both Ace), the author creates an unusual world. As the story is told through Susan's eyes, everything, even the more fantastical events, seems matter-of-fact and dispassionate, which draws readers in and intensifies the horror. However, while some readers may find it satisfying that Susan has found a way to help her mother, others are likely to question her ability to protect herself from her father and worry that she has no adult to turn to for help.-Lisa Prolman, Greenfield Public Library, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
Seeking to escape her controlling, abusive father, Susan joins three friends to investigate a haunted house. She soon develops a dangerous connection with both the house and its ghostly occupant, who committed suicide some sixty years earlier. The narrative's tone is coldly dispassionate and the story is not quite resolved, as this is a prequel to Hoffman's two adult novels featuring the same characters. From HORN BOOK Spring 2004, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Susan, 14, begins to find answers in this haunting ghost story, a prequel to A Red Heart of Memories (1999) and Past the Size of Dreaming (2001). If Susan doesn't do exactly as she's told, her incredibly controlling father beats her mother and explains that it's Susan's fault. She lies to carve out some time when she can visit a strange old house with a motley assortment of school friends. Susan can feel this house: its thoughts, its memories, and its history, the more so when the group meets Nathan, a teen ghost whose hanged skeleton still remains within its walls. Susan is deeply attracted to Nathan and begins to wonder if being dead might be preferable to her current life. A quiet climax offers hope but not resolution. The writing is controlled and effective; Susan and Nathan have vivid personalities almost in contrast to their silvery presences and the sentient house is a fine character. The best of the three. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 6-8. In this atmospheric prequel to A Red Heart of Memories (2000) and Past the Size of Dreaming (2002), a teenager begins the painful process of breaking away from her abusive father, with help from allies both human and supernatural. A chance encounter with three classmates leads Susan to an abandoned house that not only turns out to have a strong personality of its own but also harbors an uncommonly substantial ghost named Nathan. After years of listening to her mother being beaten for her minor transgressions, Susan is internally well armored--but that armor thins under the influence of these newfound friends and the eerie closeness that develops between her and Nathan. Richly endowed with complex relationships, a strange and subtle brand of magic, evocative language, and suspenseful storytelling, this will draw readers into a world less safe and simple than it seems at first glance, then send them on a determined hunt for sequels. --John Peters Copyright 2003 Booklist