Girl, Unframed
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Seven starred reviews!
“A riveting, meticulously plotted mystery with plenty of drama.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A teen girl’s summer with her famous mother turns sinister in this gripping thriller inspired by a real-life Hollywood murder from Printz Honor–winning and National Book Award finalist author Deb Caletti—perfect for fans of Courtney Summers’s Sadie.
Sydney Reilly has a bad feeling about going home to San Francisco before she even gets on the plane. How could she not? Her mother is Lila Shore—the Lila Shore—a film star who prizes her beauty and male attention above all else…certainly above her daughter.
But Sydney’s worries multiply when she discovers that Lila is involved with the dangerous Jake, an art dealer with shady connections. Jake loves all beautiful objects, and Sydney can feel his eyes on her whenever he’s around. And he’s not the only one. Sydney is starting to attract attention—good and bad—wherever she goes: from sweet, handsome Nicco Ricci, from the unsettling construction worker next door, and even from Lila. Behaviors that once seemed like misunderstandings begin to feel like threats as the summer grows longer and hotter.
But real danger, crimes of passion, the kind of stuff where someone gets killed—it only mostly happens in the movies, Sydney is sure. Until the night something life-changing happens on the stairs that lead to the beach. A thrilling night that goes suddenly very wrong. When loyalties are called into question. And when Sydney learns a terrible truth: beautiful objects can break.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A brief list of court evidence prefaces each chapter of this suspenseful novel, indicating that a crime will be committed between its pages, which slowly reveal the wrongdoing and its perpetrator. Sydney Reilly, 15, dreads having to leave her Seattle academy to spend the summer with Lila, her movie star mother who is now renting a San Francisco home from her wealthy boyfriend, Jake. Sydney is wary of real estate developer and art collector Jake, a "real man" who shows signs of being abusive, but she adores his German shepherd, Max, who soon becomes her constant companion. She's on the beach with Max when she meets Nicco, a dog lover who offers an exciting, passionate distraction from the fear and uneasiness she feels at home. As her romance with Nicco intensifies, tensions rise between Lila and Jake and their arguments turn more violent. Caletti (A Heart in a Body in the World) offers a riveting, meticulously plotted mystery with plenty of drama alongside an exploration of objectification and the male gaze. San Francisco's sandy beaches, unusual structures, and mysterious caves reflect Sydney's feelings of loneliness, eeriness, and passion, and her eventual sense of power. Ages 14 up.