ALIS

This compelling, briskly paced tale of a girl’s flight from her home to escape an arranged marriage is ultimately too thin on details to be completely satisfying. Alis, a sheltered but intelligent young woman sets out to find her long-lost brother after learning that her parents have promised her in marriage to their Community’s much older Minister. Her experiences on the run and in a brutal, unnamed city season her and eventually, believing that a boy with whom she has fallen in love has died, set her on a course toward home. Written in a clean, unadorned style, Alis’s story is deftly plotted, twisting and turning in unexpected ways and meditating on feminist themes. The deliberate ambiguity of the setting works at first, but wears thin as it becomes clearer that the mystery of where and when events are taking place will remain one. Particularly undeveloped is the flimsy prophetic construct of Alis’s forced marriage: The answer provided for why Alis’s otherwise loving parents would promise her so seems tacked on and unconvincing. (Fiction. 13 & up)