The Walls around Us by Nova Ren Suma (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Walls around Us by Nova Ren Suma Deborah Stevenson, Editor Suma, Nova Ren The Walls around Us. Algonquin, 2015 319p ISBN 978-1-61620-372-6 $17.95 R* Gr. 9-12 At Aurora Hills Secure Juvenile Detention Center, there’s Amber, in for manslaughter (an abusive stepfather died in a slightly too convenient car fire), one of the forty-two the institution can contain. Outside, there’s eighteen-year-old Violet, dancing the title role of the Firebird and headed toward Juilliard. Between them there is Ori, Violet’s long-time best friend and supremely talented fellow dancer; after a horrific crime behind the ballet school, Ori was sent to Aurora Hills and became Amber’s cellmate. As Amber’s and Violet’s narrations alternate, it becomes clear that something strange and supernatural happened—or is happening—at Aurora Hills that’s bringing the two stories together, and that there’s more to the terrible event three years ago than Violet’s admitting. Suma craftily sets the two stories against one another, moving between Violet’s fiercely grounded account and Amber’s hauntingly destabilized one, enticing readers to figure out how the pieces go together; it’s clear right from the opening that something is off-kilter at Aurora Hills, so the uncertainty is gratifyingly disturbing. Hints of the truth about the crime intensify in Violet’s narrative but remain oblique (“You can’t ever blame someone for putting herself first,” she thinks coolly), but surprises still remain right until the end. Readers who loved the author’s spooky but redemptive 17 & Gone (BCCB 3/13) and who are looking for something a little more vengeful will curl up happily with this. Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois