Recent Reads - Without Tess

Without Tess, by Marcella Pixley

   4.5 of 5 Stars

Buy It:  Amazon  /  Barnes & Noble

Genre:   Young Adult, Contemporary

Pages: 224

Publication:   10/11/2011, Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Why I Chose It:  I received an advanced readers copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and thoughtful review.

Synopsis (from Good Reads):   Tess and Lizzie are sisters, sisters as close as can be, who share a secret world filled with selkies, flying horses, and a girl who can transform into a wolf  in the middle of the night. But when Lizzie is ready to grow up, Tess clings to their fantasies.

As Tess sinks deeper and deeper into her delusions, she decides that she can’t live in the real world any longer and leaves Lizzie and her family forever. Now, years later, Lizzie is in high school and struggling to understand what happened to her sister. With the help of a school psychologist and Tess’s battered journal, Lizzie searches for a way to finally let Tess go.

My Review:  Growing up my sister Katie was my best friend. My family moved around a lot so she was oftentimes the only constant in my life. She was creative, exciting, adventurous. All the things I longed to be myself. And I truly believe that I would have followed her anywhere and done anything she'd asked. Perhaps this is why Without Tess has affected me so profoundly. It was a story that immediately resonated with me and I found myself tearing up just a few short pages in.

Tess is ill, that much is clear from the pages of her journal and Lizzie's recollection of their relationship. She lives in a fantasy world. She is delusional and is in equal parts protective of and cruel to her younger sibling. She often makes Lizzie feel like she is inferior or requires that she do something dangerous in order to prove her love for Tess.

As Lizzie grows up and away from Tess, Tess becomes desperate to keep Lizzie believing in her fantasies. She doesn't want to participate in therapy or take medication that will take away the magic. Eventually, she becomes depressed and chooses to end her life, leaving Lizzie with an intense guilt for having been unable to save her sister.

Now a teenager, Lizzie must come to terms with what happened and through her sister's journal entries understand why it happened.

The prose is lyrical, poignant, incredible. Ms. Pixley knows how to create a daring, dark, and emotionally taut experience for her readers.

Her characters are well-developed, multi-faceted, complex. There were times I despised Tess's behavior and times I wanted to cry for her. And Lizzie. I adored Lizzie. Especially younger Lizzie who blindly follows Tess. Who worships her older sister. Who reminded me so much of me.

I cannot say enough about this book. I LOVED it. Seriously Ms. Pixley, I need more books like this in my life. Please. I beg of you, write more like this and I will continue reading. This story broke my heart. It's a painful look at mental illness, love, loss, and guilt that will take me a while to recover from. I recommend it for anyone who likes an emotional contemporary or who finds themselves in need of a good cry.


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