I Am the Cage

Nineteen-year-old Elisabeth Amos, who is still navigating complications following a major surgery for fibular short congenital femur and fibular hemimelia at age 11, decides to forgo college. Now she lives alone in a secluded cabin in Fish Creek, Wis. Beyond her job at a local store, she keeps to herself, until a power outage during a snowstorm forces her to confront her fear of authority figures and rely on her neighbor, Sheriff Noah Harmon, for assistance. Elisabeth opens up to Noah and, with his help, grapples with her long-buried memories of her various medical procedures and the pain she’s endured, as well as the neglect she experienced from her doctors and mother. In this semi-autobiographical debut, as addressed in an author’s note, Grant moves back and forth in time, highlighting the trauma Elisabeth experienced in white-knuckled detail (“The friction of bone and flesh and blood and steel. It feels sticky and hot, like oil on fire”). Through Elisabeth’s poetry, integrated throughout, Grant artfully showcases the complicated back-and-forth between keeping oneself safe and staunching one’s own growth. Elisabeth and Noah’s dialogue crackles with tension and sincerity, and depictions of Elisabeth’s harrowing struggles with her narcissistic mother are cathartic. Most characters read as white. Ages 12–up. (Feb.)