Dear Reader

A dreamy teen follows her unstable young English teacher down a rabbit hole of romance, magic, and literature in this audacious tale. Seventeen-year-old Flannery is ready to leave her judgmental Connecticut peers behind and head to Columbia University, where her favorite teacher, Miss Sweeney, promises that Flannery will "find her people." Then Miss Sweeney goes missing, but she leaves behind a copy of Wuthering Heights that also contains an up-to-the-minute account of her whereabouts. Flannery finds the book and, anxious to flex a little college-style freedom, impulsively hops on a train to Manhattan to find her. A whirlwind day unfolds between two narratives. Miss Sweeney's first-person account details erratic travels about the city as well as the tragic teen romance that caused her breakdown. Flannery's attempts to locate her teacher--assisted by a posh young man who might be a reincarnation of Brontë's Heathcliff--are relayed in a tight third-person narrative that follows Flannery's frequent fanciful mental diversions. Both young women share a rambling verbosity that makes for dense reading, and the copious Wuthering Heights connections lack cohesion. But, like much classic literature and like growing up, reading this immersive novel is all about the experience. Tenacious, bookish readers will be entranced--and perhaps inspired to seek out the source text. jessica tackett macdonald