White House Autumn

Meg, now a junior at an elite D.C. private school, has more or less adjusted to the constant scrutiny of being First Daughter and dealing with the Secret Service when a would-be assassin seriously injures her mother. White seems to understand the workings of the White House as well as any Beltway insider, and she imagines Meg's complicated responses with psychological insight and grim humor—think Cynthia Voigt crossed with Meg Cabot. Here is Meg, finding a photo of herself in a news magazine, taken as she sits alone in a hospital corridor, face buried in her hands: “The First Daughter in a moment of private grief, the caption said. And it was private. It didn't seem right that they could publish that.... The kind of picture that was going to show up in Year-in-Review issues.” Nothing is easy or glib: the dramas, Meg's and the entire family's, are explored slowly, sometimes elliptically, invariably rivetingly. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)