Summary: Meet Andi Alpers. Her brother is dead. Her mother is locked in a world of sorrow,
and her absent father might as well be dead.
Ever since the loss of her brother, Andi is surviving the best she
can. She takes medicine for the
depression, but nothing truly satiates the pain but music. Though she’s capable, her grades start to
fall, and the school alerts her father.
He whisks her mother off to a psychiatric hospital and Andi to France,
where he expects her to work on a thesis she must write to graduate. It is the discovery of a diary written during
the French Revolution and a boy she met playing her guitar near the Eiffel
Tower that interests Andi much more than her paper. Through Alex’s story of her affection for the
royal family, specifically Louis Charles, readers get a first-hand account of
the events of the French Revolution.
Through Alex and with some support along the way from Virgil and even
possibly some adventures in time travel, Andi is finally able to cope with the
loss of her brother, who looked strikingly similar to the young prince. Impression: It took me a lot longer than the week we had
to read this book, but it was completely worth it. I loved the story within a story aspect that
was present with following Andi in present times and following Alex in the past
through her diary. The way the two
stories came together in the end with Andi believing she went two centuries
back and wax Alex was a great way to “finish” the diary. It was a very unusual way to tell a story,
but it sure captivated me. I found
myself talking to Alex, telling her Orleans was a dirty double-crosser, but it
was to no avail. Suggestions for library setting:
Just like most books I’ve read this semester, I saw faces of students to
recommend this to while I was reading it.
Through my enjoyment of it, I convinced two reading teachers and several
students to read it, and one of my student aides has taken it on as a
challenge. For those who are interested
in something similar to the upcoming release of Les Miserables, this will be a modern story about the French
Revolution they can enjoy.
Donnelly, Jennifer. (2010).
Revolution. New York: Delacorte.
Revolution Andi Alpers, a 17-year-old music lover,
is about to be expelled from her elite private school. Despite her brilliance,
she has not been able to focus on anything except music since the death of her
younger brother, which pushed the difficulties in her family to the breaking
point. She resists accompanying her work-obsessed father to Paris, especially
after he places her mentally fragile mother in a hospital, but once there works
in earnest on her senior thesis about an 18th-century French musician. But when
she finds the 200-year-old diary of another teen, Alexandrine Paradis, she is
plunged into the chaos of the French Revolution. Soon, Alex’s life and
struggles become as real and as painful for Andi as her own troubled life.
Printz Honor winner Donnelly combines compelling historical fiction with a
frank contemporary story. Andi is brilliantly realized, complete and complex.
The novel is rich with detail, and both the Brooklyn and Paris settings provide
important grounding for the haunting and beautifully told story.
Revolution. (2010). Kirkus
Reviews, 78(19), 994.
Andi Alpers's younger brother
died two years ago and his death has torn her family apart. She's on
antidepressants and is about to flunk out of her prep school. Her mother spends
all day painting portraits of her lost son and her father has all but disappeared,
focusing on his Nobel Prize-winning genetics work. He reappears suddenly at the
beginning of winter break to institutionalize his wife and whisk Andi off to
Paris with him. There he will be conducting genetic tests on a heart rumored to
belong to the last dauphin of France. He hopes that Andi will be able to put in
some serious work on her senior thesis regarding mysterious 18th-century
guitarist Amadé Malherbeau. In Paris, Andi finds a lost diary of Alexandrine
Paradis, companion to the dauphin, and meets Virgil, a hot Tunisian-French
world-beat hip-hop artist. Donnelly's story
of Andi's present life with her intriguing research and growing connection to
Virgil overshadowed by depression is layered with Alexandrine's quest, first to
advance herself and later to somehow save the prince from the terrors of the
French Revolution. While teens may search in vain for the music of
the apparently fictional Malherbeau, many will have their interest piqued by
the connections Donnelly makes
between classical musicians and modern artists from Led Zeppelin to Radiohead. Revolution is a
sumptuous feast of a novel, rich in mood, character, and emotion. With multiple
hooks, it should appeal to a wide range of readers.
Norton, E. (2010). Revolution.
School Library Journal, 56(9),
150-152.
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