CONJURED

Someone is killing atypical teens, and Eve is a witness, a target or an accomplice—she just can’t remember which.

Eve doesn’t know who she is or where she came from after waking up from surgery with a new name, a new face and an underdeveloped cover story provided by the agency that now supports her. She struggles to adjust to her strange new world, finding solace only in her work as a library page with Zach, who is cute, intelligent and as agenda-free as any typical teenage boy. Everyone else—agents “Aunt” Nicki Gallo and Malcolm Harrington and a clutch of other agency-protected teens—manipulates and misleads her. Eve’s newly acquired magical abilities and resultant visions of a bizarre and brutal carnival prove vital to the agency’s work but destructive to her short-term memory. She is an unreliable and constantly confused narrator, but her pursuit of the truth and her selfless love for Zach help to transform her from a puppet into a real girl. Durst excels at describing grotesque violence and gorgeous magical transformations alike, painting a touching portrait of first love against a backdrop of Twilight Zone–type terrors.

Patient readers will respond to this slow thriller about a girl with memory loss and magical powers, and a murderer on the loose.