Imaginary Girls

by Nova Ren Suma

Overview

A beautiful and chilling story for fans of Lauren Oliver and Lisa McMann

Chloe's older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can't be contained or caged. When a night with Ruby's friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the body of her classmate London Hayes left floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away from town and away from Ruby. But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns to town two years later, deadly surprises await. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has deeply hidden away, the fragile line between life and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780142421437
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	06/14/2012
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	840L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Nova Ren Suma studied writing and photography at Antioch College in Ohio and went on to receive an MFA in creative writing/fiction from Columbia University. She lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

In her first YA novel, Suma creates a surreal and dreamy world where magical thinking is carried to a chilling extreme. Fourteen-year-old Chloe idolizes her older sister, Ruby, a boy magnet who runs wild in their New York upstate town and is denied nothing. At a drunken party, Chloe accepts Ruby's challenge to swim across the local reservoir and finds a drifting rowboat holding the body of London, a girl from school. Afterward, Chloe is forced to move in with her father in another state; two years later, Ruby fetches Chloe back, and everything's different. Or nothing is. Chloe can't tell for sure. Ruby still has the run of the town, but there's London, alive and well. Chloe begins to recognize that things work differently in her sister's world; events bend to accommodate Ruby, and reality itself seems to take its shape from her desires. Suma (Dani Noir) uses the story's supernatural, horror movie–ready elements in the best of ways; beneath all the strangeness lies beauty, along with a powerful statement about the devotion between sisters. Not your average paranormal novel. Ages 14–up. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 9 Up—After discovering the body of a classmate while swimming in the local reservoir, Chloe, 14, is sent away to live with her father, instead of with the older sister who raised her. Two years later, Ruby comes to get her back. When she returns to town, London is no longer dead and Chloe starts to see the true nature of the mysterious power her sister holds. What begins as a fairly straightforward story twists and turns its way into something far more sinister and dark. Ruby's hold on the town initially seems to be the hold that all popular, beautiful girls have, especially when seen through the lens of a younger sister. As the story progresses, Chloe sees that Ruby's power is something else entirely, and not entirely natural. Despite this, Ruby will go to any means necessary to protect Chloe, and the teen starts to question the bonds of family and loyalty as she realizes exactly what that means. The creepy intensity grows slowly, building an atmospheric piece that draws readers in and holds them through unexpected developments. Some readers may want more explanation of the fantastical elements, but the unsettled feeling of the ending fits perfectly with the tone and mood of the rest of the narrative.—Jennifer Rothschild, Prince George's County Memorial Library System, Oxon Hill, MD

School Library Journal

A sexy, surreal and touching exploration of the outer limits of sisterly love's power.

In upstate New York, Ruby and Chloe have reared themselves after being abandoned by their useless drunk of a mother, and they nearly own their idyllic town. Ruby is a casually sultry beauty whose magnetic appeal allows her to get her way in matters of fashion, finance and affection. Ferociously protective of Chloe, who feels she's "a pencil drawing of a photocopy of a Polaroid" of her sister, Ruby Makes Things Happen. When a fellow teen dies during a summer party at the town's reservoir, where an entire neighboring town lies, silent and drowned, Chloe exiles herself to Pennsylvania to live with her father. But two years later, Ruby calls her home to discover that London, the girl who died at the party, is alive, and nobody remembers she was dead. Ruby is full of even more odd stories and rules, and Chloe is torn between a dreadful curiosity—how are Ruby, London and the reservoir connected?—and relief at being back in her sister's fierce, loving orbit.

The mystery unfolds a tad too incrementally, but this glittering puzzle box of a story about the exertion of one girl's will over life and death is as moving as it is creepy. (Psychological thriller. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews