Mortal Remains

January 1, 2021

Gr 9 Up-Lily McCrae feels more comfortable with the dead than the living. She's been doing hair and makeup for the clients of her father's mortuary for years, making her the target of bullies in her small town. When the Lassiter house mysteriously explodes and authorities find a body inside, she's reminded of a boy named Adam who once lived there, and she's terrified it's him who has died. When she was young, she fell out of a tree while playing with him and broke her pelvis. He saved her, but she hasn't seen him since. Her desire for answers leads her to explore the burnt remains of the house, where she finds a boy, hungry and trapped in an old fallout shelter. He says he is Adam Lassiter, but he doesn't seem to remember Lily, or the time they spent together. When it's determined that the body found on the property belongs to Adam's father, Lily's family takes in the boy, but there's something very odd about Adam. The more time Lily spends with him, the more the mystery deepens, as do her growing romantic feelings towards him. An overabundance of one-dimensional characters and a meandering plot make this story hard to follow. The strange supernatural twist feels a bit incongruent to the rest of the plot, shoe-horned in to make everything make sense. VERDICT While the book has an interesting and somewhat original idea, the execution makes this hard to recommend for anything but large collections.-Mandy Laferriere, Fowler M.S., Frisco, TX

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December 15, 2020
Lily knows how to care for the dead, but what about the living? In her greater Bay Area town, scarred and scared 18-year-old Lily--long teased for being the daughter of a mortician, nearly killed and still limping after a serious fall from a tree years earlier--finds it easier to relate to the dead people she prepares for burial than to her (centrally cast) best friend or recent high school-graduate stepbrother. Lily, who avoids social situations, dropped out of school after 11th grade and now has her GED diploma. Her genuine compassion for the dead (she spends her hard-earned money buying a deceased homeless woman a nice thrift store outfit for a viewing no one attends) and her anxiety around the living create an unusual and compelling portrait. When a nearby home explodes and the lone survivor is a mysterious boy who may be the same person who saved her when she nearly died, Lily falls again--this time emotionally. The end result is a mashup of one too many elements: A thoughtful bildungsroman vies for attention with a Stranger Things-like blend of evil-government-action story mixed with science fiction, fantasy, and mystery, to the detriment of both despite their individual unique charms and the ways the two plots support each other. In a town infamous for a lynching, main characters are White by default. Intriguingly different but in need of refinement. (Paranormal romance. 12-18)

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February 1, 2021
Grades 9-12 Growing up in a funeral home, Lily feels more comfortable talking to the dead than the living. After all, the people she prepares for burial offer no judgement. However, a wish to open up to someone who can talk back sparks when a violent fire strikes the home of a former friend, Adam, whom Lily finds confused and alone in the bunkerlike science lab beneath the rubble. The more time she spends with Adam, the more questions she has, not just about who he is, but what he might be. Fraser's story isn't driven by its central mystery; rather, it's propelled by Lily's growing agency. As she gets closer to the truth about Adam, she begins to ask questions about herself and her desires, teased from the wants of others--an evolution that Fraser renders compellingly. This tells many familiar stories--those of a teen understanding her place within a family legacy, of friendships stretching beyond their childhood origins--but what will keep readers hooked is its protagonist's kindness, empathy, and willingness to grow.

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