"Revolution" by Jennifer Donnelly

The French Revolution was a long, drawn out, complicated event with a ton of players and unexpected turns.  Much like the actual Revolution, this book is a bit of a hot mess.  There are so many threads in this lengthy tome that some get left by the wayside.  There are so many twists that, in the end, I went from trying to maintain some needed "willing suspension of disbelief" to incredulity.  It's possible Ms. Donnelly could have pulled it all together, but in a lot of ways, she tried too hard.  I've never been a fan of an author who pushes an agenda instead of letting the story unfold, and that is certainly the case here. 

I usually try to compare books to other works in my reviews to give folks some context.  In this case, there are so many allusions -- and most of them are better.  I was reminded of two books in particular, Peter Dickinson's "A Bone from a Dry Sea" and Libba Bray's trippy "Going Bovine."

SPOILER ALERT

The story is this:  Andi, an anorexic/depressed/suicidal drug-using teen in Brooklyn, can't get over her baby brother's murder.  Andi hangs with a crowd ripped right out of almost any CW teen show.  Her rich, super-smart, invulnerable "friends" seem as two-dimensional as she feels.  The only thing holding her together is her music ... barely.  Her mother, a French painter, is similarly struggling, spending every free minute painting imperfect portraits of the lost boy.  Andi's father, a Nobel winning DNA specialist, has left town to hang with his pregnant, younger girlfriend.  As Andi and her mother spiral down, dad appears, hospitalizes mom, and takes an unwilling Andi to Paris, where she is told she "must" complete her Senior Thesis on the fictional musician Amade Malherbeau.  While her father travels around Europe to deal with business, she stays with old family friends, who, surprise, surprise, are Nobel winning historians studying the French Revolution (did I mention Andi apparently speaks perfect French?)  Andi finds a hidden diary of a young entertainer living during the Revolution, a girl named Alexandrine, nick-named Alex.  Alex's life also takes unexpected turns and she ends up being the sole companion to the young Dauphin, Louis-Charles, son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.  When the royal family's fortunes change, Alex takes it upon herself to become a lawless renegade to bring the jailed boy some brief moments of happiness.  In the meantime, in modern-day Paris, Andi meets a cute musician and explores the catacombs.  After taking too many "Qwells" (a made-up anti-depressant), she falls down, passes out and has an Over the Rainbow experience.  In case you miss the Wizard of Oz connection, the author makes sure to hit you over the head with it (pun intended).  It all wraps up very neatly -- the story of Amade Malherbeau, Andi's thesis and new love interest, yadda yadda yadda. 

The biggest issue for me is that it just isn't believable.  I'm willing to go for a flight of fancy, but this is all a little too contrived, right down to the death of Andi's brother.  It isn't just that he is killed in random street violence, the scene plays out like some poor man's version of a Law & Order episode.  The writing isn't bad, but it isn't good.  It's just kind of bland.  Not the lyric/literary style I like, so it didn't draw me in.  The best written sections are the diary entries of Alex -- and therein lies the heart of the matter (pun intended, but you would have to read it to get the joke).  Alex's story is just far more compelling.  The stakes are bigger and Alex is a fighter.  Andi, on the other hand, may be a young woman you feel sorry for, but eventually she got on my nerves.  She was whiney, passive, and all too willing to give up.  Had Ms. Donnelly just focused on the historical story, I would have found this to be engaging.  As it is, I spent way too much time looking at the page count on the eBook version I read.