FICTION

Finding Ruby Starling

304p. Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine. Aug. 2014. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9780545534826.
COPY ISBN
Gr 5–8—After doing an image search on herself, Ruth Quayle finds pictures of a girl who looks like her double. Ruby Starling is also 12 ¾, but unlike Ruth, living in America with adoptive parents, she lives in England with her birth mother. The novel is told in a series of emails between the girls and to and from their friends and families.The emails are full of slang that works for both girls' cultures and feels surprisingly authentic. Interspersed with the emails are Ruth's poems, posted to her Tumblr page, and Ruby's handwritten letters to her dead Gran. Readers travel through the emotional journey of discovering an unknown twin while trying to navigate the normal tween life of best friends and maybe boyfriends. Both girls have trouble understanding why their mother kept Ruby and gave up Ruth but in the end find that reconciliation is possible. The emotional content of the novel comes through in a genuine and natural way; readers will feel for each girl as they discover each other and the truths about themselves. The other characters are only lightly sketched, but their relationships to the twins add depth to the readers' understanding of the girls. Overall, a fun book for middle graders.—Genevieve Feldman, San Francisco Public Library
Twins separated at birth, a neonatal heart transplant, and the death of a beloved grandmother--it all sounds a bit much, but Rivers pulls it off in this epistolary, dual-narrator story. Ruth, an American twelve-year-old, e-finds her identical twin, Ruby, in England. As with any novel in letters (in this case emails, handwritten notes to the dead grandmother, and the occasional Tumblr posting), voice is everything, and Ruth and Ruby have distinctive, convincing, and highly entertaining writing styles, sparkly with (albeit already dated) slang. Ruth's compliment to her parents: "you are totes amazeballs." Ruby's dismissal of the male species: "wazzocks." Ruth is especially adept with metaphor: "like being punched in the gut by a clown holding particularly interesting balloons." Subplots abound, including the backstory of two complicated families, secrets piled on secrets, and the tricky territory of a boy Ruth likes but doesn't like-like. Glued together with our fascination concerning identical twins (what's nature? what's nurture?), it is all cunningly choreographed into the central engaging and suspenseful story of two sisters who find each other mid-childhood. Hectic, highly textured, and good-natured without being soppy. sarah ellis

Be the first reader to comment.

Comment Policy:
  • Be respectful, and do not attack the author, people mentioned in the article, or other commenters. Take on the idea, not the messenger.
  • Don't use obscene, profane, or vulgar language.
  • Stay on point. Comments that stray from the topic at hand may be deleted.
  • Comments may be republished in print, online, or other forms of media.
  • If you see something objectionable, please let us know. Once a comment has been flagged, a staff member will investigate.


RELATED 

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?

We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?