Lisa McMann's (the Wake trilogy) gripping new novel, about 16-year-old Ethan De Wilde returning home after his childhood abduction, will leave readers burning for closure long after its chilling ending.
The story starts with narrator Ethan's reunion with his family, nine years after strangers first drove away with him. His parents immediately embrace him, but Ethan's brother, Blake, soon accuses him of being an impostor, and six-year-old Gracie, the "Replacement Kid," is kept in the dark about the abduction entirely.
Ethan can't recall much from his time before the abduction and relearned everything about who he was from his family's website before their reunion. Ethan's assimilation is not smooth. He's often haunted by his past with Ellen, the woman who kept him hostage, and his time spent in group homes and living on the streets. In addition, Blake often provokes fights with Ethan, who's already tense from starting school again and confronting his abduction with a psychologist. The unfolding romance with his neighbor Cami occasionally steadies Ethan, but this is certainly not a love story.
McMann's succinct first-person narrative skillfully carries the authenticity of a teenage boy, his fractured memory and reintegration into a family who expects much from him, despite his scarring childhood. Her exploration of an abductee psyche is both illuminating and unsettling and is realistically portrayed through sudden bursts of Stockholm Syndrome, Ethan's strong efforts to remember his life through family photos and his recurring temptation to run away. With a disturbing and raw ending, Dead to You is unforgettable. --Adam Silvera, events assistant, Books of Wonder, New York City