Rating: WORTHY!
Richard Peck attended the same university that one of my older brothers did: the University of Exeter in Britain (the same university which JK Rowling attended), but I'd never heard of him until a review which I read mentioned this novel. I picked it up at the library, breezed through it in a few hours, and now I'm a Richard Peck fan! This saddens me because it makes me only too painfully aware of how many other authors there are out there - authors I would love to read if only I knew who they were - authors I will never read because I will never hear of them. Like I said - life is too short!
This novel shows up how badly written all-too-many YA novels are these days, wherein the girl has to have a male love interest or she can't function, or the story has to be overwrought or overdone, or to have a love triangle. There is, I'm sorry to say, a large number of female YA authors who could learn a huge amount from Richard Peck about how to create great, and strong, female YA characters, and how to build and portray relationships between boys and girls.
The novel is very well written, moves at a decent clip without being too slow or too fast, tells an amusing, slightly creepy, a little bit sad, and ultimately a very rewarding story. It's set in 1913/14, and the main protagonist is Blossom Culp, a self-possessed girl who comes from a dirt-poor background. The story begins with her thwarting a scheme she overheard discussed by local high school ruffians, to overturn all the (outdoor) toilets in the neigborhood. This venture alone is worth reading the book for. It's hilarious and inventive, and is what gets Blossom started on the story path.
Blossom's mother has "second-sight" - she's clairvoyant and has a reputation in town. She's helped the police solve a crime or two, but she's very hard on her daughter. Dad is nowhere in the picture. The most interaction they've had with him in several years is a postcard which he's had to have someone else address for him since he's illiterate, so there never is a message.
Let me say right here that I don't have any belief in the occult. I think it's all nonsense and fraud. There is no valid evidence whatsoever of anyone having any supernatural powers, or of any life after death, but I do love a good story which pretends that there is, and this was a classic example of such a story.
Blossom isn't considered to have her mother's power, but an event with a little child becoming hurt and Blossom seeing it in her mind and alerting the child's mother to the incident, leads to her having increasingly common visions, including the advent of World War One. She has to carry this horrible, horrible knowledge alone because she knows no one will believe her or try to prevent it were she to reveal it. The odd thing, though, is that she also has a vision of a massive ocean liner sinking, and a tragedy attached to it - a tragedy above and beyond the hundreds of frozen corpses which the Titanic strewed across the North Atlantic.
It's this issue which really takes over and propels this story, and it's so well written and so inventive that it keeps you right there all the way through. I've often seen reviewers berate a story because the character shows no growth, or doesn't change, and I frankly don't get that mentality. A story isn't about necessary change or growth. it's about interesting events (if it's a good one!) and interesting people. This is a case in point because while things do change around her, Blossom really doesn't change throughout this story. We learn more about who she is as we go, but there really isn't anything to her at the end - save for experience - that's significantly different from how she appeared at the beginning, yet this story was amazing!
There is another novel set in this same world, featuring a male interest of Blossom's, and Blossom herself, but the story is told from the boy's perspective. I am sure I will be reading more Richard Peck stories. I recommend that you read at least this one, which is one of two Richard Peck novels I've reviewed, both about strong female characters, and both set in the same era.
