THE QUANTUM JULY

An ambitious and serious attempt to explore the similarities between modern physics and Eastern philosophy that ultimately doesn’t work. Though the premise is extremely interesting, and has in fact been tackled successfully in several nonfiction books for adults, the parallels in King’s fictional story are often elusive and seem forced. Thirteen-year-old Danny, a dreamer, suddenly finds himself trapped inside the unpredictable quantum world when his younger sister Bridget, a brainy 12-year-old scientist who takes after their physicist mother, initiates an experiment in which Danny carries several equations in his pocket. A state of superposition ensues in which Danny has two fathers, two brothers, and a sister who seems to be fading away. He has to choose between the adventurous father he always wanted, the one who returned to Tibet and gave up his young family during an important period of time, and the father he knows, a “Harvard-educated stock boy” nicknamed “the Cuke.” Making choices (the equivalent to opening the box with Schrödinger’s cat) and the subsequent consequences factor large in this talky, earnest debut, weighty with adult issues and light on spiritual substance. (Fiction. 10-14)