Grim

Waggener won the 2008 Scholastic Art and Writing Award for an early version of this debut novel. It’s easy to see what the judges liked—brooding atmosphere, fresh descriptions, and an unusual and compelling rogue, Jeremiah. But prod those descriptions, and it becomes a question what their purpose is. Readers are told that the Stripling siblings—Rebecca, Shawn, and Megan—are grieving their mother’s death in a car accident; that Erika, the mother, is stuck in Limbo and longs for her children; that a bastard son would break every law of the afterlife to gain legitimacy. But particularity, insight, and emotional realism are lacking in these relationships and events, weakening their resonance and urgency. The characters are two-dimensional and schematic, defined by family relationships that have the static, predestined quality of dead myth. (Erika is a mother, and as a mother she wants her children back. That’s all readers really get from her.) The novel becomes an exercise in technique and allusion, with only glimpses of story. Ages 13–18. (June)