A Line in the Dark

August 7, 2017
In this unusually structured murder mystery, Lo (Inheritance) explores the knotty jealousies, romantic longings, and class disparities among students at a pair of Massachusetts high schools. The first half of the novel is seen through the eyes of Jess Wong, a Chinese-American 16-year-old, who is in love with her best friend Angie but afraid to admit it. She’s even more reluctant to do so after Angie begins dating Margot, a popular athlete from a nearby private school. In addition to worrying that she’s losing Angie, Jess clashes with Margot’s friend Ryan, which turns Jess into a potential suspect after Ryan goes missing after a party and is eventually found dead. Jess’s insecurities and simmering emotions are palpable in her first-person narration, and the superhero comics she draws, which features a similar love triangle, further muddy the waters of the mystery behind Ryan’s death. Lo pivots halfway in, finishing the story through a mix of transcript of police interviews and third-person chapters, deepening the mystery, shifting potential guilt among multiple possible culprits, and keeping readers guessing until the final pages. Ages 14–up. Agent: Laura Langlie.

September 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-Friendship, romance, obsession, and crime all get tangled up in this complicated mystery about love and lies. Angie Redmond and Jess Wong are best friends, though Jess harbors a desperate and rather obvious crush on Angie. Their relationship becomes complicated when Angie begins to date Margot, a wealthy student at a nearby boarding school. Jess, a talented artist who creates a dark, supernatural comic about a love triangle, has her doubts about Margot, who seems cruel and controlling. Margot drives a wedge between Angie and Jess, but eventually, a murder brings them back together. As the police interview all three girls, the details of the night a student is killed highlight the tension among Angie, Jess, and Margot, but do not clearly point to who may have committed the crime. Just when it seems like the truth is coming to light, the story takes another turn, forcing readers to reassess everything they think they understand. Dark, twisty, and unsettling, this book almost begs to be read in one sitting, and then instantly reread. The pace picks up in the second part, with higher tension and uncertainty propelling the story forward quickly, encouraging teens to race to the whodunit conclusion. Though the final few chapters feel rushed, they provide a satisfying-and shocking-finale to this scandalous examination of jealousy, secrets, and untrustworthy characters. VERDICT A high-interest thriller with wide appeal recommended for all collections.-Amanda MacGregor, formerly at Great River Regional Library, Saint Cloud, MN

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2017
Grades 9-12 Four girls teeter upon the precarious line between love and obsession in Lo's arresting psychological thriller. Sixteen-year-old Jess would do anything for her best friend Angie, anything but accept her beautiful, athletic new girlfriend, Margot, an entitled snob from Pearson Brooke School. Jess, who is attending art class at Pearson through an exchange program, has heard stories of Margot's and her friend Ryan's merciless bullying. When her attempts to show Angie the truth backfire, Jess finds herself gradually carved out of Angie's life. Uncertain of who she is without Angie to revolve around, Jess has to make sure that the moment Angie needs her again, she'll be there. The bulk of the story is told brilliantly from Jess' tightly observed perspective, her observations colored by intense jealousy and desire, the truth of which is doled out in subtle moments and expressive language. Though the late shift to a distant third person is jarring, Lo (Inheritance, 2013) uses it to further stoke a sense of foreboding that doesn't let up until the unpredictable conclusion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2018
When her best friend Angie falls for Margot, Jess's unrequited longing becomes jealousy. Angie hopes that the three of them, plus Margot's hostile best friend Ryan, can become close. Then, after a party, one of the four girls dies from a gunshot. Who killed her? Lo's taut storytelling expertly doles out clues and draws characters as complicit in unexpected ways for an addictive psychological mystery.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

November 1, 2017
Jess's feelings for her best friend Angie are strong and complicated--a mix of longstanding affection, mutual dependence, protectiveness, and unrequited longing. Jess and Angie are both queer and out, but have never been together. When Angie falls for Margot, a wealthy, charismatic student from the nearby tony boarding school, Jess's jealousy builds. Her concerns about Margot's motives are mostly warranted, but Angie persists in the hope that the four of them--Angie, Jess, Margot, and Margot's hostile best friend Ryan--can become close. Then, in the aftermath of a party, one of the four girls dies from a gunshot. Who killed her? Lo's storytelling is taut and vivid as she expertly doles out clues (Margot's history of bullying; Ryan's secret stash of love letters). Post-murder, the book pulls back from Jess's perspective to a third-person narration interspersed with police interview transcripts, forcing readers to confront Jess's unreliability as a narrator as they attempt to piece together means, motive, and opportunity. Meanwhile, Jess's ongoing art-class project puts a supernatural spin on issues of rivalry, friendship, possessiveness, and mistaken intentions, complicating readers' assumptions about what is really going on. Drawing every character as complicit in unexpected and thought-provoking ways, Lo spins an addictive psychological mystery. claire e. gross

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from September 1, 2017
Queer romance, friendship rivalries, and ominous secrets twist together in Lo's latest enthralling tale. Chinese-American Jess Wong has known her white best friend, Angie Redmond, since grade school--the problem is she's loved Angie for nearly as long, unrequited. When Angie begins dating Margot Adams, a wealthy white student at a nearby private school, Jess knows she should be happy that her friend is happy, but as jealousy and suspicion about Margot eat at her instead, her friendship with Angie begins to crack apart. Jess tries to throw herself into her comics art, but even there, themes of loyalty, love, and betrayal arise. As tensions reach their breaking point, a classmate and friend of Margot's is discovered murdered in the park, and the resulting upheaval and search for a killer sheds light on some harrowing truths about everyone. Lo has delivered an intricate tapestry of narrative, woven in a labyrinthine pattern of secrets and colored with intersecting hues of Chinese-American identity, the dark intensity of relationships, and telltale stains of blood. A sudden (and likely disorienting) shift from Jess' first-person perspective to a more detached third-person narration serves the practical purpose of providing information; together with police interview transcripts to which Jess couldn't be privy, it artfully signals to readers that Jess is no longer in control of the story...or the facts. Mesmerizing. (Thriller. 13-17)

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