What's not to love about a title like that? It gets at both
the improbability and the insanity at the core of this comical debut novel
narrated by 14-year-old David Gershwin. David is spending the summer with his "famous
therapist" father (his parents are divorced) in the village of Cornouille,
on the "very edge of Normandy," 100 miles from Paris. He immediately becomes intrigued with one of his father's
patients, Zelda, who was caught stealing food from a market outside Paris. One
policeman says of Zelda, "She's a demon, a tigress, THE DEVIL!" It
took four guys to immobilize her. Zelda insists she's from Vahalal and has come
to Earth to find her "chosen one" and bring him back to her planet. "She's
pretty in a scary sort of way," according to David. "Like something
you'd really like to touch but that will probably bite." Zelda wants to
get to Paris because Zook ("what you Earthlings call God") told her
that's where she'll find her chosen one. After Zelda knocks out David's father
and escapes, he decides it's too dangerous for David to stay, and he sends the
teen back to his mother's in Paris. Zelda stows away in his mother's trunk.
To Gary Ghislain's credit, he makes it seem possible that Zelda truly is from another planet. Or she might be schizophrenic (though the hero's father insists, "No one is ever crazy, David"). But then how to explain her superhuman strength and her talent for Space Splashing ("the ability to be at two points in space at the same time")? It gets even better: Zelda points out to David her chosen one on the Internet--none other than Johnny Depp. But the only way she can be sure is to "sample" his DNA. She demonstrates on David--a French kiss. It's his first; he's a goner.
The farfetched framework succeeds because all of Ghislain's rules adhere. Even when others enter the story--David's stepsister, other "aliens" from Zelda's planet, additional police officers--they, too, are awed by Zelda's capabilities and witness her Space Splashing. It's as if everyone comes under her spell. And once a bond forms between David and Zelda, the narrator's stakes are high. So we as the audience believe (at the very least) that he believes these things are happening around him and to him. You have to read it to believe how well this holds together. This is a funny, touching exploration of summer love at its best-- the geeky guy gets the irresistible object of his dreams who's completely out of his league, and no one in his "real life" would believe it. This book should be in the hands of every teen male reader, and female readers will find a superhero champion in Zelda.--Jennifer M. Brown