The French Impressionist

September 15, 2016
Fifteen-year-old American Rosemary, desperate to escape her mother, poses as an art student to find a new family in France. The white teen has never been alone. Her mother schedules every moment so they'll never be apart. Luckily, her friend Jada, who is white and severely disabled, understands her voice, which is distorted by a neurological disorder called childhood apraxia of speech. Jada unwittingly aids her elaborate, rash, perversely sympathetic scheme to stay with a host couple in Nice...and eventually take their absent son's place. After an abrupt misunderstanding thwarts her plan, Rosemary makes a dangerous accusation. Compared to the cloying unease braiding through Rosemary's accounts of her mother and the sickening dread of her unraveling lies, a subplot involving hidden art and one-dimensional villains feels superfluous. The warm portrayal of her host parents intensifies Rosemary's longing to speak out until her narration almost hurts, but the vivid emotions fade in a pat denouement. The reason for her mother's tight leash doesn't justify the years of infantilization and virtual imprisonment. Though done out of love, her mother's overprotectiveness reads as psychological abuse, and the quick resolution of her mother's potentially crippling restrictions implies that good intentions override their effects--a particularly unfortunate implication for a book featuring several characters with disabilities. A deeply unsettling portrait of love, psychological abuse, and the hell of good intentions. (Fiction. 13-18)

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December 1, 2016

Gr 7 Up-When she is 15, Rosemary fakes her way into an exchange program for aspiring artists in southern France. After submitting plagiarized works of art and documents that falsify her level of understanding of the French language, she is accepted. She's even duped her family; her overbearing, overprotective mother thinks that her daughter is just flying away to Phoenix. After she settles into her new host family's home, Rosemary has to figure out her next move. She claims to have laryngitis to avoid speaking in her not-so-fluent French, but how long can that last? Then a family from Texas befriends her host parents, and their attractive teenage son also happens to suspect that Rosemary isn't who she says she is. Rosemary has only ever attended an all-girls school, and she doesn't know how to act around guys, so her awkwardness adds to her difficulties. Her host mom, Sylvie, also becomes suspicious after she and Rosemary spend an afternoon painting and Rosemary's pieces lack the same feeling and skill as her program submissions. The plot stretches believability: Could Rosemary truly have boarded an international flight rather than a domestic one and spent the entire summer abroad without being detected? In addition, Rosemary experiences communication challenges that make it difficult for her to speak with ease in any language, and while it's refreshing that this doesn't define her, it's an element that isn't always easily integrated into the story. What works best here is the author's ability to evoke the feeling of being in France, with descriptions of the rooms, smells, and sounds, all adding to the artistic themes of impressions and impressionism. VERDICT Though the narrative is uneven, the novel's French setting and identity questions may draw YAs, especially aspiring artists.-Jessica Lorentz Smith, Bend Senior High School, OR

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