The Girl in the Mirror

Lizzie McLane (The Secret of Me) has just received a letter from the adoption agency with information about her birth mother. But her adoptive father unexpectedly dies that same day, and everything else falls away. The poetic forms vary greatly, but the voice is clearly and distinctly Lizzie through them all. A beautifully wrought story with memorable characters and true-to-life issues.

Lizzie McLane (The Secret of Me, 2005) is on the cusp of an exciting future: high school graduation is right around the corner, and she has just received a long-awaited letter from the adoption agency with information about her birth mother. But her adoptive father unexpectedly dies that same day, and everything else falls away. It is with this excruciating event that Kearney's coming-of-age novel in poems and journal entries begins. Lizzie loses interest in (and control of) her life, engages in dangerous behavior, and lets her most important relationships deteriorate. Despite her poor decisions, however, she never comes off as an immature, rebellious teen. Her problems are rooted in real, understandable pain, and due to the immediacy and palpability of her hurt in the sometimes elegant, at other times biting poems, we don't blame her for a thing. Lizzie is wise, insightful, creative, and impossible not to invest in as she spirals down and then rebounds; we, too, breathe a sigh of relief as she feels "something heavy inside / begin, very slowly, to lift." The poetic forms employed vary greatly (all explained in the appended "Guide to This Book's Poetics"), but the voice is clearly and distinctly Lizzie through them all. The poems and entries are each strong enough to stand alone but smoothly coalesce into a beautifully wrought story with memorable characters and true-to-life issues. katrina hedeen