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FindingJane
Sep 04, 2014FindingJane rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
The premise of a life lived in an alternate reality is skillfully handled here, although it may take a few chapters before the reader can untangle the storyline. Abby’s dilemmas don’t have easy solutions and the writer doesn’t try to tie everything up in a neat package. The notion that the slightest, most trivial actions might have momentous consequences (the butterfly flapping its wings, etc.) is played out carefully; Ms. Miller doesn’t give us any shortcuts as we wrestle through the dual timelines of the heroine and her parallel self. Abby’s fears that she might wind up in a rubber room or in a secret lab somewhere are treated with utmost seriousness and then dismissed in the gentlest of fashions. Without anybody having to say so, you realize that she possesses a layman’s acceptance of science but unreasonable fears of it as well. Warped by seeing one too many science fiction films, she initially shares her problem with the brainy Caitlin only, a secondary but vital character in this YA drama. This is an absorbing novel, filled with well-rounded three-dimensional characters and sparkling dialogue. Ms. Miller also throws in such disparate subjects like rowing, astronomy, religion and Greek mythology and manages to make them all rather interesting. The knowledge that everything and everyone are connected is a awe-inspiring discovery that grows on the protagonist and the reader alike.