Jess is a teenage girl living in the 1990’s in a suburban town in upstate New York called Swickly. There is nothing special about Jess. Her friends ignore her on AIM most weekends. Her mother rarely lets her leave the house except for school. She has a crush on her only male friend Tyler.
Jess is bland and normal, unless you consider that her sister Sara is dying of a mysterious blood disease, Jess wakes up hearing strange voices some mornings, and every March something horrible happens. One year, a tornado hit the town. Last year, someone broke in to Jess’s house.
This year, Jess busies herself spending as much time with Tyler as she can, and Tyler is surreptitiously trying to do the same. However, tragedy is lurking just around the corner for Jess this year, as she comes home from school to find that Sara is in the hospital. When she and her family return, Jess’s dog has gone missing, and a new dog has appeared. The next day, Tyler communicates his true feelings to Jess, and she gets upset and runs away from Tyler. Sara passes away suddenly at the hospital, and Jess gets upset and runs away from home.
While running away is usually a terrible idea, Jess has some very good reasons. The tone of this book shifts from Babysitter’s Club to Blade Runner halfway through. Jess escapes the small world of Swickly to New York City where she finds old friends and makes new enemies.
I grew up in the 1990’s, but I read more Babysitter’s Club books than Jess did. The author executed a skillful twist to the teen drama. I was impressed, and I’ve felt nonplussed at many M. Night Shyamalan reveals. The book passes the Bechdel test. Jess has multiple conversations with her sister and best friend about many topics that do not center around men. There’s no mention of ethnicity in this book, but an enterprising movie or tv producer could adapt this story to pass the Aila test without being unfaithful to the original text. If being faithful to the original text is not a problem, I think the story could be adapted to take place on a reservation. However, the paperback cover features a white girl, so its likely that the characters in the book are mostly white. I give this book two squees and one meh.