Vertigo

Gr 7 Up—German author Kristina Dunker's novel (AmazonCrossing, 2012), translated by Katja Bell, is ambitious, but comes across as fairly convoluted. Sixteen-year-old Eva is excited to be on her own and spending an extended weekend with her boyfriend, Julian, at his family's vacation home in the country. As she travels to Munkelbach, listeners learn that she is seeing a therapist, the "fox guy," and has kept detailed notes about her life and emotions in a diary. When she arrives, hours late and after dark, she foolishly decides to walk to the mill where Julian waits, unable to get her because he sprained his ankle. She stumbles on an attack of a boy by a group of teenagers which sets in motion a series of events that get stranger and scarier as the story unfolds, particularly after she discovers that her diary is missing. Listeners will wonder how the parents of this teenager allowed her to go off to spend an unsupervised weekend with her older boyfriend, particularly when she has emotional issues significant enough to require counseling. Tighter editing would have improved the story. Narrator Emily Beresford does a good job, but is hampered by the text.—John Clark, Hartland Public Library, ME