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Readers' rating:
Published Jun 2010
496 pages
Genre: Poetry & Novels in Verse
Publication Information
In one moment
it is over.
In one moment
it is gone.
The morning grows
thin, grey
and our lives-
how they were-
have vanished.
Our lives have
changed
when I walk in
on Lizzie
my sister
holding a shotgun.
Twelve year old girl Hope's life is turned upside down when her older sister Lizzie becomes an elective mute and is institutionalized after trying to kill herself. Ever since their dad died Hope and Lizzie have relied on each other from a young age. Their mother is a reluctant and unreliable parent at best, who turns tricks to support the family. Throughout the course of this lyrical and heartbreaking narrative readers and Hope discover that the mother is prostituting Lizzie and it's up to Hope to bring the truth to light to save her sister.
With raw and haunting writing reminiscent of Ellen Hopkins and Elizabeth Scott, Carol Lynch Williams is a promising new YA voice.
"Starred Review. Written in spare yet resonant verse ... the book is told from the unreliable perspective of 12-year-old Hope, whose 14-year-old sister, Lizzie, threatens to shoot herself on page one." - Publishers Weekly
"Williams leans hard on her free-verse line breaks for drama ("And I almost / forget / every / awful / thing / in / my / life"), and it works. A page-turner for Ellen Hopkins fans." - Kirkus Reviews
"Glimpse is a subtle punch in the gut. Williams' demonstrates how courage, resilience, and love can help young people in the most dire of situations survive. This is a book I will read again and one I will recommend to teachers and to my own students." - Chris Crowe, author, professor at BYU and former ALAN president.
This information about Glimpse was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Carol Lynch Williams, who grew up in Florida and now lives in Utah, is an award-winning novelist with seven children of her own, including six daughters. She has an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College, and won the prestigious PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship.
The Chosen One was named one of the ALA's Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers and Best Books for Young Adult Readers; it won the Whitney and the Association of Mormon Letters awards for the best young adult novel of the year; aand was featured on numerous lists of recommended YA fiction. Carol's other novels include Glimpse, Miles From Ordinary, The Haven, Waiting, Signed, Skye Harper, and the Just in Time series.
Carol facilitates the children's writing conferences at Utah Valley ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Carol Lynch Williams's Website
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