Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma

Dutton Books, June 2011

352 pages

Book Source: This copy was an advanced reader's copy. The release date is set for June 14, 2011.

Chloe's older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can't be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby's friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the dead 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 hidden deeply away, the fragile line between life and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.

With palpable drama and delicious craft, Nova Ren Suma bursts onto the YA scene with the story that everyone will be talking about.

--Summary from GoodReads.com

Judging by the cover: The cover is what grabbed my attention and ultimately drove me to need this book. The watery atmosphere and the corpse-like figure gives the feeling that something is wrong, very wrong, and I just had to know what those secrets hinted at were.

Favorite Elements:

• Extinct Town - I've always been fascinated by towns that were submerged when the need to build a reservoir overcame the need for people to stay in their homes. What would happen if there were still people in the houses when the water came? Would they try to return, try to take prisoners of their own? These are the types of questions that haunt me and they apparently had the same effect on Ruby and Chloe.
• New York State - Though their town is quite a distance away from where I grew up, I can't help but love anything set in "upstate" NY (everything outside of New York City is considered upstate to city residents). New York has some beautiful scenery that can't be found anywhere else, and I relish the opportunity to explore it as much as I can, even in books.

Overall: D+

This book had some strong potential. Suma is very skilled at description; it's almost as if she's developing a photograph in front of your eyes, providing a very real image of the surroundings in your mind. Her characters are extremely realistic, too. Chloe is the faithful little sister, convinced that her older sis, Ruby, is the only person in the world that matters. Ruby knows what she wants and with her enchanting charm is able to achieve just about anything she sets her mind to. Even the secondary characters are powerful: London, Owen, Jonah, and Pete are all people you could imagine yourself having a conversation with, could call on the phone and they'd answer. 

Where the book takes a plunge, however, is the plot. I was confused when I realized that this was not a book about plain ol' sisters and deep family secrets. No, the plot, though it is subtle, is supernatural. This does not automatically make the book bad. The downfall comes when Suma begins dividing her attention between two major points in the story, those of the town of Olive and Ruby's eerie power over the townspeople. If Suma had chosen one of these themes and stuck with it, the story would not, in my opinion, have fallen apart at the end. Instead, the shared attention waters the story down, and the plot, not knowing which direction it was supposed to go in, split itself into too many pieces and shattered just when the going got good.

Recommendation: Though it pains me to say such things about a book with a fantastic cover that begs to be read, I would advise against picking this up.