Category: Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN-13:9780061572937
Pub. Date: September 2008
Date Read: December 2008
"After Alena disappeared, my mother was brimming with blame. She blamed the state police for not making enough effort. She blamed other families for not understanding... She never directly blamed us, her two remaining children... But we have always understood: Alena was the baby. Alena was the favorite. Six-year-old Alena... was the irreplaceable one."
The novel starts with a very moving prologue about a family who was torn apart by the kidnapping of the youngest child. The parents divorced, Bits and Ash the older children grew up with guilt and blame, and have gone their separate ways.
But now 13 years later and Alena's remains have finally been found. Their mother, Ellie, thinks she'll finally have her children back because certainly Ash will return for his sister's memorial service.
Bits, the sister who makes rash decisions, decides she'll go get her brother. She knows that he's been living at a yeshiva in Israel after deciding his life is better living as an Orthodox Jew and away from his family, and she knows he probably won't want her interrupting his life but she won't come back without him.
The novel is told from the viewpoints of Ellie, Bits and Ash and the reader gets to know their struggles. Ellie will do anything to have her family back, even if it means trusting a stranger to de-program her son. She believes that Ash is living a cult life. Ash just feels so much blame for his sister's disappearance that he turns to religion for redemption. And, Bits is just wild. She has casual relationships with strangers, lies but underneath it all you feel that she must be seeking some sort of solace too.
I thought the author did a wonderful job of delineating each character and creating their very individual voices. They were flawed but they seemed so real and you could understand, if not excuse, their motivations.
The novel explores themes of redemption, loss and religion and so I would highly recommend this in particular for a book group as there would be so many angles to discuss.