Lark

In the tradition of The Lovely Bones, portions of this riveting novel are narrated by a murdered girl; but it is the mythological quality of her afterlife that gives the story its unique resonance. Sixteen-year-old Lark was abducted after gymnastics practice, raped in a wooded section of Washington, D.C., tied to a tree, and left to die. Porter's spare, luminous prose doesn't flinch from the tragedy, but it doesn't dwell gratuitously on it either. As Lark is dying—an unforgettable scene—voices of other murdered girls speak to her from inside the surrounding trees. "It's almost over'…said the one keeping watch. 'Now.' She closed her eyes and began to cry. Snow turned to sleet and covered the branches in ice." Additional chapters are voiced by Eve, a former friend of Lark's grappling with her own past experience of sexual molestation, and Nyetta, a twelve-year-old neighbor whom Lark's ghost visits. "Lark wants me to see her. She needs me to see where the knife went in, because if no one knows what it was like for her, then her spirit will be trapped in that tree." Haunting natural imagery depicting Lark's gradual transformation interweaves beautifully with Porter's nuanced portrayal of what it's like to be a girl navigating an often confusing, sometimes dangerous world. CHRISTINE M. HEPPERMANN