The Confessions of Jonathan Flite
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4.5 • 8 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Jonathan Flite claims to have memories he can't explain. Seven layers of them, to be exact, all belonging to a group of teenagers who disappeared from a place called Idle County in 2010-ten years before his birth. Seventeen years of anxiety, violent outbursts, and refusal to admit he is lying have landed him at Crescent Rehabilitation Center, a seaside juvenile center for rich kids, and nobody has ever dared to believe his memories might be real.
Until now. On a blustery November day just three months after a nuclear terrorist attack in Geneva, Switzerland, ex-CIA psychiatrist Thomas Lumen arrives at Crescent to interview Jonathan for a book about Idle County. Fueled by his personal connection to the disappearances three decades earlier, he asks Jonathan to share what he knows-anything and everything. By reigniting this thirty-year-old mystery, however, Jonathan inadvertently becomes a target of the very same religious terrorists who attacked Geneva, and they'll stop at nothing to keep the secrets of Idle County under wraps. Jonathan must then make a choice: to continue telling his story, or risk the safety of everyone he loves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This genre-defying series opener from Beier (The Breeders) spans a generation and is told from multiple points of view. In 2010, seven teenagers disappear into the Moon Woods of Minnesota, becoming known as the Idle County Seven. Molly, one of the missing, narrates the events leading up to her vanishing; she also leaves behind a journal detailing her fixation with ghost hunting. Decades later, Jonathan Flite, a volatile and unsociable 13-year-old, claims to possess intimate knowledge of the vanished Seven. A curious psychologist seeks out Jonathan, who lives in a home for troubled youth, while numerous other characters become preoccupied with the unsolved mystery. Meanwhile, a controversial leader of a radical new wave of atheism is ominously linked both to a nuclear bombing in Switzerland and to the Idle County Seven. Beier's narrative range is formidable, weaving a tapestry of multiple characters and plot tributaries; the story's paranormal and quantum physics elements are perhaps more evocative than the underdeveloped thriller aspects. The many shifts in perspective and time frame can be disorienting, but Beier's engrossing storytelling leaves many questions intriguingly unsettled. Ages 12 up. (BookLife)
