It had been a while since I had read a novel by Deb Caletti,
but reading her newly released
A HEART IN A BODY IN THE WORLD helped to remind me how much I
enjoy her award-winning writing. This
story focuses on Annabelle who lives near Seattle and starts running one day
after a drunk guy approaches her in an inappropriate way. It is clear that
there has been trauma in Annabelle’s life and her family, single mom Gina,
younger brother Malcolm, and Grandpa Ed all try to support her. In fact, her
across the country run becomes a cause with a Go Fund Me page set up by her high school friends, and
interviews arranged with high school newspapers along the way. Annabelle reluctantly embraces this
acknowledgment of her emotional pain and even begins making speeches. One of her struggles is “the sense that she must apologize for and atone for
other people’s actions.”
Here are just a few other quotes that illustrate Annabelle’s
physical and emotional journey: “Sometimes
you just snap. Snapping is easy when you’re
already brittle from the worst possible thing happening.” “Worry is a different
version of prayer.” “She’s forever in a
spinning round-ness of who she’s supposed to be and who she really is; what’s
expected and what she really wants. When you spin like that, things get blurry.”
“How weird, she thinks, that there are people who maybe don’t feel this thing,
this endless buzz of nerves and fear and responsibility and control.”
Readers will empathize with her efforts both at running and
with dealing with past events which are gradually shared in a series of
flashbacks. Annabelle keeps a journal and many chapters start with notes about
the heart like this one “There are only one and a half gallons of blood in the
body at a time. And you only have to
lose two liters of it – one bottle of Diet Coke – and it’s over.” The story of A
HEART IN A BODY IN THE WORLD will have wide appeal. And there are
numerous connections with recent headlines, #MeToo or #WhyIDidntReport, and new
non-fiction books like Rage Becomes Her.
A HEART IN A BODY IN THE WORLD by
Deb Caletti received starred reviews from Booklist, Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly. Highly recommended - Look
for it on our shelves soon.
