BREATHE MY NAME

Frances left Fireless, her mother’s dark imaginary world, years ago and found comfort in an adoptive family, but when she receives a letter from a psychiatric hospital saying “finish it,” horrific memories surface. Two small sisters lie lifeless on a bed; sick games turn giggles into shrieks; and a mother’s saucer eyes terrify. To end these nightmarish visitations, Frances embarks on a secret road trip to face her mother. Her boyfriend, Nix, drives, offering empathy and humor. Nelson’s teen characters emerge as unique, fully realized people with accents, physical features and emotional dimensions that distinguish them from familiar young-adult caricatures. Vivid, unnerving scenes from Fireless break up Frances’s present-day journey, jolting readers and placing them inside her psyche. With sensationalized news everywhere, teens will be fascinated by Frances’s childhood at the center of a media-crazed tragedy. Readers also see what happens to the tragic players after cameras stop clicking. An unlikely final twist does not dilute Nelson’s incandescent writing. Its shimmering clarity transfixes the reader, candling both damaging and redemptive familial forces. (Fiction. YA)