I have read this book four times.
14 year old Chloe and her 18 year old sister Ruby live next to a reservoir in upstate New York, where Ruby is queen. Everyone adores her. She gets what she wants and gets away with anything. One day, while at a party at the reservoir, Ruby brags about how amazing Chloe is at swimming, how she could swim across without coming up for breath and not drown. And because Ruby is Ruby, everyone believes her, even Chloe. So she tries, and when she is halfway across, she finds the drowned body of her classmate London. Shocked with what she's found, Chloe moves away from Ruby, to Pennsylvania, to live with her Father. Two years later, Ruby comes back for her, pleading for her to return. She does, and is shocked to find London alive, well, and with no memory of her death. As the story unfolds, Chloe realizes just how influential Ruby is, having brought London back from the dead to make everything back to normal.
I think that though Chloe loves Ruby, part of this love is fear. She knows how powerful she is, what she can do to get what she wants. She will always get what she wants, whether it is an object, love, life, beauty- even the death of of anther person. In one part of the book, Ruby gets a whole bunch of balloons, and writes wishes on each of them, such as "bake me a homemade lasagne." One is "ask me to dance and let me say no." When Chloe asks her why she would want that, Ruby says "so I can feel powerful." Chloe is frightened out of her mind. Another, "make me cry," is explained with "I want to know that I CAN cry, that someone can reject me." Chloe is scared even more. After Ruby's death, Chloe can't believe she's gone, because Ruby gets what she wants, and why would she want to die?
Even though Chloe loves Ruby more than she loves anybody, she is still frightened by her power.
No comments:
Post a Comment