WINTER WHITE

A teen raised in isolation experiences an awakening when she’s forced to engage with the outside world.

For years, Pia and her little brother, Max, have lived with their father, Leo, on a farm in rural Maine. Leo swears that secrecy and strict discipline are the only way to keep them safe from unspecified foes, and until the winter of her sixteenth year, Pia has had no reason to doubt him. But when Leo breaks his leg in a fall, Pia’s world opens up as she takes over his mysterious delivery business, making frequent trips into town where, for the first time in nine years, she interacts with new people. Helpful librarians, troubled customers, and a handsome, hauntingly familiar 17-year-old boy named Felix disrupt Pia’s understanding of her home, her father, and the stories she’s been told about her life. Cardi handles the novel’s darker themes with aplomb, navigating domestic abuse and drug addiction with sensitivity and realism. The book is a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, and readers familiar with the play will recognize certain elements in the novel—Leo’s violence and cruelty reframes Leontes’ mistakes with the benefit of a contemporary sensibility, and there’s a bear to boot—but despite being a variation on a classic, the novel works independently of its source text. Main characters read white.

Read this as a take on Shakespeare’s romance or as a coming-of-age story in its own right—but by all means, read it.