Francine Prose – Goldengrove (2008)

Francine Prose - Goldengrove

(ABC BOOK REVIEW)

Never before had I read anything before by this author, and it was only after reading several chapters I realized that Prose has written juvenile fiction titles, and that this book was probably also aiming for a juvenile audience.

I enjoyed the story about a teenage girl, Nico, who is very close to her sister Margaret, and at the beginning of the summer they go out in a boat, and the sister drowns. Nico’s life changes dramatically, including her relationship with her parents. Her parents are also devastated by the accident and both retreat in their lives.

Nico then hooks up with Margaret’s boyfriend, who tries to keep Margaret alive in Nico. Nico remains very aware of what is going on, and the book ends on a positive note, with a more mature girl.

A great feature of the book is that the father works in a bookstore, and that Nico starts working there in this dramatic summer as well. As a bookseller, any description of a bookstore in a novel is fun to read…

The main difference between this book and the more ‘grownup’ books that I usually read is that the more adult issues are hardly addressed. For instance, the mother seems to become addicted to painkillers, but this is only mentioned off-hand; it doesn’t seem to bother anyone, whereas I would expect something dramatic as this to have more weight in the novel.

The good thing about this teenage point of view is that it reads very easily, very fluently, and the book paints a very charismatic picture of the girl Nico.

All in all, I enjoyed reading this novel and would be looking forward to novels by this author that I can stock in the General Fiction section.