BURIED

Seventeen-year-old Claudine, the super-efficient daughter of an alcoholic single mother, awakens to a mess in her trailer home one morning and plunges into cleaning, her habitual mode of escaping unpleasant realities. She realizes her mother has gone, probably with a new boyfriend. Claudine, however, tells everyone that her mother finally has gone into rehab. Meanwhile, she struggles to impose order in the house with frenzied cleaning. As the days pass, she descends into ever-deeper compulsive behavior, neglecting her schoolwork, her chance for a scholarship and even her cat. At last, she makes a discovery from which she can’t hide. Not a thriller as described, but an absorbing psychological study, first-time author MacCready’s spare style holds the reader’s interest as she peels away the defenses that Claudine has built up over her lifetime. The climactic scene packs a punch. Well-done and recommended for both reluctant and serious young readers. (Fiction. YA)