INVISIBLE THREADS

A deft, moving chronicle of two lives: 16-year-old Carrie-Anne, hostile and restless within her adoptive family, and Naomi, her birth mother, shown from young childhood up until age 16 when Carrie is born. Naomi has a dysfunctional mother with wild mood swings, so childhood is precarious and painful. Carrie-Anne seems to have had a tolerable childhood, but as a teen feels angry and confused. She infuriates her mum; the two clash hard, unable to connect, and Carrie sets out to the town where the never-met Naomi lives now. Chapters alternate between the two lives, with threads reaching across from one to the other. Each is first-person but they’re unmistakably distinct: Naomi’s voice is fluid and poetic; Carrie’s chaotic and emotionally rocky. The dramatic difference between voices illustrates the very real distance between the two people. They don’t meet—at least not yet—but Carrie-Anne finds some peace, and Naomi makes her inevitable choice. Easy to relate to, colorful and poignant. (Fiction. YA)