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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Review: Chopsticks

Chopsticks
By Rodrigo Corral and Jessica Anthony
Published 2012 by Razorbill

After her mother died, Glory immersed herself in music and quickly, her father trained her as a piano prodigy. Now a teenager, Glory has disappeared. Told largely through images in flashback, the story of Glory and her disappearance unfolds.

This book was getting tons of buzz at Midwinter and I was disappointed that I couldn't get an ARC. So, when I spotted it on the new book cart, I snatched it up, knowing it probably wouldn't take that long to get through. I was right. This is an incredibly quick read - I think it took me maybe twenty minutes - but an interesting one. As the text is minimal, readers are left to their own devices in their attempts to puzzle out what the images mean and what exactly happens to Glory. I can see this as a book that readers will want to pick up again shortly after finishing it but, alas, that was not the case for me. This book was a bit disappointing after all the hype at Midwinter. I understand that there may be multiple ways to interpret the events of the story and the conclusion but, in my opinion, it's pretty clear what happened to Glory. And I didn't find it particularly surprising. While the concept and format of the book are quite unique (though I did read Caroline Preston's The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt last year), the story just didn't really impress me all that much. I can see, however, how this book will be immensely appealing to teens and expect it might make a YALSA book list for 2012.

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