Imaginary girls

A moody, drenched atmosphere supplies intrigue and pulls readers into an upstate New York town whose essence seems epitomized by the beautiful, charismatic Ruby, sister to the story's narrator, Chloe. Ruby is a teller of tales, chief among them the story of a flooded town still lying beneath a nearby reservoir. In her stories, otherworldly townspeople patrol beneath the surface, demanding tribute. When a local girl dies suspiciously during a forbidden swim party at the lake, the shaken Chloe leaves town to live with her father, but eventually Ruby convinces her to come back. That's when things get plain bizarre. The dead girl, London, is partying with Chloe's friends, and Ruby, living with another in a string of besotted beaux, comes and goes mysteriously. Always protective of Chloe, Ruby now seems controlling. What exactly is going on is never totally clear, either to Chloe who isn't exactly the most reliable of narrators or the reader. Still, the story is eerie, and Suma's rambling, loopy sentences reinforce a feeling of displacement. For teens who like open-ended, spooky oddities.--Cruze, Kare. Copyright 2010 Booklist

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) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Gr 9 Up-Chloe has been raised by her half-sister Ruby-the girl all the other girls want to be like and all the boys want to hook up with. Ruby seems to have an uncanny ability to get whatever she wants-except on a summer night at the reservoir, when Ruby dares Chloe to swim across the huge body of dark water. Nearly drowning, Chloe clings to a floating rowboat and discovers the dead body of her classmate, London.ÅAfter this disaster, Chloe is sent to live with her father, far away from the magnetic Ruby. Two years later, Chloe returns to live with Ruby. But things aren't as they should be-people who are supposed to be dead are mysteriously alive, and Chloe suspects that Ruby is somehow responsible. Or is she? Nova Ren Suma's eerie novel (Dutton, 2011) blends the paranormal with contemporary realistic fiction in an atmospheric tale of life, death, friendship, and the unbreakable bonds between sisters. Many of the plot elements are hard to believe, even within the paranormal genre, and the character of Ruby-a fickle, selfish girl who cares for no one except Chloe-is difficult to like. Emma Galvin does a fine, if not particularly memorable, job of voicing the teenage characters in this creepy tale.-Margo Tanenbaum, Rancho Cucamonga Public Library (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Like most people in town, Chloe does anything her sister Ruby asks. When a tragedy threatens to tear the sisters apart, Chloe learns the deadly lengths her sister will go to in order to protect her. Told through the overly doting eyes of Chloe, the plot sometimes drags. The mystery's resolution and supernatural elements may keep pages turning. (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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 curiosityhow 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)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A moody, drenched atmosphere supplies intrigue and pulls readers into an upstate New York town whose essence seems epitomized by the beautiful, charismatic Ruby, sister to the story's narrator, Chloe. Ruby is a teller of tales, chief among them the story of a flooded town still lying beneath a nearby reservoir. In her stories, otherworldly townspeople patrol beneath the surface, demanding tribute. When a local girl dies suspiciously during a forbidden swim party at the lake, the shaken Chloe leaves town to live with her father, but eventually Ruby convinces her to come back. That's when things get plain bizarre. The dead girl, London, is partying with Chloe's friends, and Ruby, living with another in a string of besotted beaux, comes and goes mysteriously. Always protective of Chloe, Ruby now seems controlling. What exactly is going on is never totally clear, either to Chloe—who isn't exactly the most reliable of narrators—or the reader. Still, the story is eerie, and Suma's rambling, loopy sentences reinforce a feeling of displacement. For teens who like open-ended, spooky oddities. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

One fateful night after too much partying, Chloe's older half-sister Ruby dares her to swim across the reservoir that borders their small upstate town. Midway, Chloe discovers the corpse of London, a classmate dead of a drug overdose. This event leads her to question her sister's guardianship and move away to live with her father. Two years later, Chloe returns home to find her sister and her friends once more partying at the reservoir, only this time London is among them, and nobody seems to think anything is amiss. Ruby wanted Chloe to come home and was willing to do anything to bring her there, even resurrect her classmate from the dead. This chilling YA debut tests the bonds of life, death, and sisterhood, as Chloe comes to understand fully her sibling's power over their community. This reader will think twice about swimming in a lake again. - "35 Going on 13," Booksmack! 10/21/11. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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)

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