(A fiercely funny and touching debut novel about a young girl trying to find out the truth behind her sisters death I have a sister who died. Did I tell you this already? I did but you dont remember, you didnt understand the code . . . She died a year ago, but in my mind sometimes its five minutes. In the morning sometimes it hasnt even happened yet. For a second Im confused, but then it all comes back. It happens again. Fear doesnt come naturally to Mathilda Savitch. She prefers to look right at the things nobody else can bring themselves to mention: for example, the fact that her beloved older sister is dead, pushed in front of a train by a man still on the loose. Her grief-stricken parents have basically been sleepwalking ever since, and it is Mathildas sworn mission to shock them back to life. Her strategy? Being bad. Mathilda decides shes going to figure out what lies behind the catastrophe. She starts sleuthing through her sisters most secret possessionse-mails, clothes, notebooks, whatever her determination and craftiness can ferret out. More troubling, she begins to apply some of her older sisters magical charisma and powers of seduction to the unraveling situations around her. In a storyline that thrums with hints of ancient myth, Mathilda has to risk a great dealin fact, has to leave behind everything she lovesin order to discover the truth. Mathilda Savitch bursts with unforgettably imagined details: impossible crushes, devastating humiliations, the way you can hate and love your family at the same moment, the timeswhen you and your best friend are so weak with laughter that you cant breathe. Startling, funny, touching, odd, truthful, page-turning, and, in the end, heartbreaking, Mathilda Savitch is an extraordinary debut. Once you make the acquaintance of Mathilda Savitch, you will never forget her. Annotation First-Place Winner of the2009 Discover Award, Fiction

Recommended to book clubs by 1 of 2 members.