FINISHED:
Phillips, Helen. (2012). Here where the sunbeams are green. New York: Delacorte/Random House.


[(Reviewed from ARC.)  Madeline (Mad) and Ruby (Roo) travel with their mother to a high-end, ultra-green spa (La Lava) located in a remote area of  Central America to investigate the lack of communication they’ve had with their father, an ornithologist there to study a rare bird once believed to be extinct.  There’s something (sinister) going on at the glitzy resort, however, when the girls’ mother seems to be falling under a spell, their father is acting out of character during the few glimpses they’ve been allowed to have of him, and they are told that to catch a Lava-Throated Volcano trogon (LTVT) would drive a person insane and that when the last LTVT dies the local volcano will erupt.  A hint of magical realism elevates this ecological mystery, and a Stepford Wives-ish tension surrounding La Lava – as if the sheen of perfection must certainly be hiding something sinister – keeps the reader exceedingly engaged.  Mad is a believably depicted tween who belittles herself next to her spunky and outgoing little sister, and her dealings with the crush she is developing on local Kyle are true-to-life:  “I mean, now I know he likes me, but why?  How?  What did I do?  I just really want to ask him this before we never see each other again.”  Throw in a plot from the girls to expose the REAL La Lava at a swanky, black-tie event with the help of a famous actress and an ailing LTVT, and Mad having to, ultimately, be the one to save the day, and you’ve got a compellingly rich tome, with a strong sense of family and place, that refuses to be genre-defined.  An Author’s Note includes a discussion of extinction, Lazarus species (animals believed to be extinct but are sighted again), and the author’s trip to Costa Rica which inspired the novel.]


STARTED:
Tolkien, J.R.R. (1937). The hobbit. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

[Um, I think there's a movie version coming out soon...]

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