Starred review from February 2, 2015
In a story framed as a creative nonfiction assignment (complete with footnotes), Normandy Pale, a student at a prestigious fine arts high school, recounts the often harrowing and sometimes hilarious events of the first semester of her junior year. It all begins when Normandy
and best friends Dusk and Neil form a “Truth Commission” in order to answer some pressing questions. Why did their pretty classmate Aimee get plastic surgery? Why is school secretary Mrs. Dekker so grumpy? Is Tyler Jones really gay? The trio’s strategy is straightforward: just ask the persons in question. Some are relieved to confess to the Commission, yet Normandy resists investigating the biggest mystery in her life: why has her sister, a famous graphic novelist, dropped out of college and returned home? With a deft hand and an open mind, Juby (the Alice trilogy) presents many layers of truth while evoking Normandy’s pain over being the subject of ridicule in her sister’s books. This is a sharp-edged portrait of a dysfunctional family with some thought-provoking ideas about what is real. Ages 14–up. Agent: Hilary McMahon, Westwood Creative Artists.
Starred review from January 15, 2015
When curiosity leads three students at a Nanaimo, British Columbia, art school ("Serving oddballs in grades ten through twelve since 2007") to ask a classmate why she had "renovations done," her surprisingly positive response prompts the trio to form the Truth Commission, an experiment in bringing hidden truths to light.Unlike fellow commissioners Dusk and Neil, Normandy has understandable misgivings about the endeavor even after an inquiry into a school administrator's legendary crabbiness turns out well (ostriches are involved). For years, Normandy and her parents have served as source material for her prodigy sister Keira's wildly successful graphic-novel series. While Normandy acknowledges fragile Keira's extraordinary gifts, knowing she owes her own school scholarship to Keira's status, she hasn't bought into the family myth that Keira's vicious ridicule is OK. Now Keira's returned home from college without explanation, ending the family's brief respite from meeting her many needs. The more lives the Truth Commission touches, the more ambivalent Normandy feels about its mission, which threatens her own passive acceptance of her family's status quo. In a tell-all, socially networked world, balancing the right to know (and use) "the truth" against the right to privacy is both confusing and challenging. Readers will root for these engaging characters to chart a successful course through these murky waters. Hilarious, deliciously provocative and slyly thought-provoking, Juby's welcome return is bound to ignite debate. (Fiction. 14-18)
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Starred review from January 1, 2015
Gr 9 Up-Normandy Pale has grown up in the shadow of her bright, artistically talented, and temperamental older sister, who as a young teen began publishing a popular graphic novel series. Disconcertingly, "The Diana Chronicles" features warped, exaggerated, but identifiable versions of her family members. Normandy and her hapless parents were greatly relieved when Keira went away to college, but now she's suddenly back, more volatile than ever, and not talking about her experiences or her latest book contract. Normandy is a junior at the Green Pastures Academy of Art and Applied Design, her sister's alma mater. As she and her two close friends reach out in the spirit of friendship and anti-gossip to their peers they learn more than they bargained for in the search for truth and justice. Normandy tells this story, and the more surreal and personal one unraveling at home, as a "narrative nonfiction" project, complete with footnotes, illustrations, and asides to her creative writing teacher. The narrative/book is smart, darkly funny, sad, and heartening as Normandy learns some hard truths, how to stand up for herself, and how to take charge of her own destiny. While there is no reconciliation in sight, there's no doubt that the truth has set her free. A surprising, witty, and compulsive read.-Luann Toth, School Library Journal
Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
April 1, 2015
Grades 9-12 Best friends and art-school students Normandy (a girl), Dusk (a girl), and Neil (a boy, duh!) form a de facto truth commission: each week, each of them will ask someone to give them the straight truth. The experiment's results will constitute Normandy's creative nonfiction project. The novel, then, is presented as that project, complete with footnotes and the occasional piece of spot art. Things go more or less swimmingly until someone suggests Norm look closer to home for the truth, and then things take a darker turn. Norm's older sister Keira is a celebrated graphic novelist whose work is based (unflatteringly) on her family. Something is amiss with Keira, and Norm decides to ferret out the truth about it. The problem, as Juby expertly shows, is that truth is messy and sometimeslike a hot potatohard to handle. Though it comes dangerously close to melodrama by the end, the story is clever, the characters appealing, and the theme is thought-provoking.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)
Starred review from March 1, 2015
Presented as narrator Normandy Pale's spring creative nonfiction project, the story recounts the excavation of truth -- and its unanticipated after-effects -- by three students at a super-artsy Vancouver Island high school. Norm and her two best friends, Neil and Dusk, multi- talented artists with quirky habits and fashion sense, blend right in at Green Pastures Academy. Though recognized as the sister of famous graphic novelist Keira Pale, Norm hopes her quiet persona will deflect the unwanted attention cast by Keira's books, which depict her dysfunctional family in grotesque caricature (Norm is transformed into an "obese, blank-faced flounder"). On the first day of eleventh grade, charming Neil makes a startlingly direct but fruitful inquiry about a classmate's plastic surgery, and the Truth Commission is born, shifting dynamics both at school and home. Normandy's wry, detailed observations range from funny to sweet to painfully honest, as she confronts dark secrets in her own family but also discovers that her longtime crush "like likes" her, too. The self-referential narrative is replete with allusions to high art and pop culture that serve to develop the characters' impressive range of creative and intellectual interests; the extensive footnotes on the writing process and sundry other topics are worth the distraction from the main story (despite Norm's disclaimers otherwise). Juby's bright dialogue and vivid, appealing characters draw readers along as the three young artists navigate truths both light and dark, discovering themselves in the process. lauren adams
(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)