Alex enrolls in a new school for her senior year in high school with the goal of graduating so she can go to college. She tells us her memories and what she sees. She takes pictures to compare the visuals to her perceptions. She asks her Magic 8 Ball questions. She has a great relationship with her younger sister. She meets other students and takes part in activities. She becomes involved in a mystery concerning the scoreboard. None of this seems unusual until the reader realizes that Alex suffers from schizophrenia. Alex is never sure what’s real and what isn’t. And since Alex narrates the novel, the reader isn’t sure either.
Francesca Zappia’s first novel, Made You Up, grabbed me from the first paragraph of the prologue. Liberating the lobsters from their tank in the grocery store isn’t the typical girl’s activity. Alex’s family fascinates me with their overwhelming love of history. Not all parents name their daughters after Alexander the Great and Charlemagne or choose a town to live in based on the historical connotation of the town’s name. And Alex’s narrations are just quirky enough to be fascinating. Her senior year seems to be a little odd. But then, what high school experience isn’t a bit odd? When is Alex narrating a hallucination? That’s the underlying question of the novel. And this isn’t really a spoiler alert, but at the end of the book I was wrong in my ideas of which things, people and events were hallucinations rather than reality.
Zappia’s style is quick and descriptive with a great deal of variety. She uses the conceit of characters playing twenty questions as a very effective means of displaying their inner thoughts and motivations.
The book speeds along and is over much too soon.
I heard about this new book at the American Booksellers’ Association Winter Institute and was thrilled to learn that Zappia lives right here in Wanamaker. She will be signing copies of Made You Up at the Bookmamas tent at the Wanamaker Old Settlers Day Festival on Sunday, June 28.
