THE ORPHEUS OBSESSION

This myth-linked reality tale in incisive prose has a glittering Weetzie Bat sensibility. Sixteen-year-old Anooshka lives with her unstable mother in upstate New York but frequently visits her exotic, beloved older sister in Manhattan. Falling hard for a rock star named Orpheus whom she meets one manic day, Anooshka pores over his daily online journals and senses a cosmic connection between them. She pursues him to his hip restaurant and they hook up, after he declares seductively that they won’t. However, Orpheus is a player and he drops her afterwards, sending Anooshka spinning downwards. Archetypal connections to the myth are mapped with intriguing complexity, placing Anooshka as both Eurydice and Orpheus. Leaning heavily on sister Moon, struggling hard with absent father, deceptive lover, dysfunctional Ma and the violent death of a passionately loved pet bird, Anooshka stumbles down into a subway underground but eventually emerges. Sharp and hypnotic. (Fiction. YA)