Wrecked » (Reprint)

E. R. Frank is the author of two highly praised novels for Atheneum: America and Friction. Her first novel was Life Is Funny, winner of the Teen People Book Club NEXT Award for YA Fiction and was also a top-ten ALA 2001 Quick Pick.

In addition to being writer, E. R. Frank is also a clinical social worker and psychotherapist. She works with adults and adolescents and specializes in trauma.

Dear anyone who cared about Cameron,

I was the driver of the "other" car.

The police and my mother and my father and plenty of people are saying that I didn't kill her. But I know I did. That's what her parents must believe. And my brother, Jack. He always sees what's true. I want to tell him how sorry I am about the accident. I want to say a lot of things to him and to everybody — like how Cameron was smart and beautiful and kind in a way that isn't all that common in high school. Like how much Jack loved her and how sometimes I can hear him crying through the wall at night. I want to say how bad everything can get.

In one split second.

Upside down and shattered.

Just like that.

Wrecked.

Publishers Weekly

Frank's (Life Is Funny) newest book deals with a family torn apart when 16-year old narrator Anna kills her brother's girlfriend, whose car swerves into Anna's lane as she drives home from a party. "The day I killed my brother's girlfriend started with me handpicking leaves off our front lawn," the novel begins, alternating between the present and flashbacks. At its best, the structure allows for moments of clarity as Anna makes sense of her family's tensions, such as a scene involving her cleaning her parents' glass collection and her controlling father asking, "Remember when Jack broke the bud vase?" Anna takes the opportunity to admit that she had broken that vase six years before, marking a sea change within her. At times, however, these juxtapositions of past and present are not as fluidly integrated, serving to distance readers from the characters. As the novel goes on, the pace picks up. Frank offers a nakedly honest portrayal of the ups and downs that plague Anna day in and day out as she attempts to deal with the aftermath of her trauma. She experiences guilt and a fear of love, and eventually gains the knowledge that whatever life throws one's way, "mostly you realize you can handle it." With her powerful staccato writing style and her aversion to fairytale flourishes, Frank creates credible, all too human characters figuring out life as they go. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.