The title of Alice LaPlante's third novel, Coming of Age at the End of Days, succinctly describes its plot. At the beginning, Anna Franklin is 16 and terribly depressed, fixated on death. Therapy and medication do nothing to bring her out of it. Her anti-religious mother begins reading to her from the Bible, just to have time together and to introduce Anna to literary references; this does not lighten Anna's world, but instead gives its darkness meaning, as Revelations resonates with her mood. What finally causes her depression to break is a new family in the neighborhood. Lars and his parents introduce Anna to their church, where it is preached that the Tribulation at the End of Days is coming. There will be blood, violence and suffering. Her heart sings at the news.
At the center of Anna's story--and of all these characters' stories--are obsessions. "Images. Sounds. The Red Heifer. Bosch's depiction of hell. A rock hitting a tree." Anna's mother is a deeply devoted pianist; her father is an earthquake nut, eagerly awaiting The Big One, in a secular obsession not unlike his daughter's. LaPlante (Turn of Mind) masterfully weaves a distressing plot in which complex, sympathetic characters, each with a complete and absorbing past, are brought to the brink of destruction and then seemingly asked: What kind of life, and death, will you choose? The reader's imagination will be won by this brilliant, thought-provoking and memorable novel. It perfectly captures the dynamics of family relationships and friendships, loyalties and priorities, and the nuanced workings of an unusual mind. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia