Description from the back of the book:
Isobel’s life is falling apart. Her mom just married some guy she met on the Internet only three months before and is moving them to his sprawling, gothic mansion off the coast of nowhere. Good-bye, best friend. Good-bye, social life. Hello, icky new stepfather, crunchy granola town, and unbelievably good-looking, officially off-limits stepbrother.
But on her first night in her new home, Isobel starts to fear that it isn’t only her life that’s unraveling—her sanity might be giving way too. Because either Isobel is losing her mind, just like her artist father did before her, or she’s seeing ghosts.
Either way, Isobel’s fast on her way to being the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons.
Amazon product page (includes a preview of the book)
Review:
Isobel arrives at Morrigan, the ancestral estate of her new stepfather, Richard Wickham, or, as Isobel prefers to call him, Dick, days before the start of her senior year of high school. She has few tokens to remind her of her old life in Seattle, the principal one being her art supplies, and her mother fears that her penchant for art will make her schizophrenic, like her father. Her stepfather makes a show of being nice to her, but she can't help but feel that beneath his family man veneer lies something more sinister. Her relationship with her attractive new stepbrother, Nathaniel, is fraught with turmoil. Nathaniel has his own personal demons; he is still reeling from the death of his mother and sister seven months prior and is as unhappy with the new arrangement as Isobel is.
On her first night at Morrigan, Isobel wakes up to see a young girl drenched in water standing in her bedroom. When lightning flashes, the girl vanishes. Isobel is left to determine whether she imagined the event or she received a visit from Nathaniel's deceased sister, Evelyn. After hearing about a couple of other mysterious deaths and disappearances at Morrigan and experiencing further encounters that could either be a message from Evelyn or a sign that she is developing schizophrenia, Isobel realizes that she must get to the bottom of the mysteries before her stepfather sends her to spend the remainder of her days in a residential care facility.
When I first looked at this book, I wasn't sure of what I was getting into. It had been years since the last time I had read a book targeted to young adults, but since I am in the process of writing a novel that revolves around teenage lead characters, I figured that it was about time to look at some young adult novels. I could not have chosen a better book for my foray into YA literature.
The first thing that struck me about it was the protagonist Isobel's humor. I laughed my way through the first chapter. I was having such a good time that I began reading passages out loud to my partner and he enjoyed it so much that I started the book over again and we read it together.
The humor may have been what drew me in, but, because of the serious nature of some of the material, I needed more than laughs to keep me going. Isobel narrates the story and the fact that she seems like a real person adds a lot to the story. I appreciate that she is not a hyperfeminine stereotype. She's artistic, she's messy, she doesn't feel the need to fit in with the popular crowd, and she takes action rather than waiting for her knight in shining armor to figure things out and save the day. However, she also does not fall into the Strong Female Character caricature of women who show no weakness (For more on the Strong Female Character trope, see e.g the article "I Hate Strong Female Characters" by Sophia McDougall). She is dealing with some serious issues, including her own mental health, and so it is natural and fitting that she at times cries and otherwise allows herself to be vulnerable.
Several of the other characters are equally complex. Some of the more minor characters, such as the queen bee popular girl Nicole, do fall into stereotypes, but the central characters have quirky traits and complex histories. Isobel's new stepbrother, Nathaniel, has been raised in a life of abundance and his lavish upbringing definitely shapes his worldview to some degree, as could be expected. However, unlike his status obsessed father, the quiet, bookish Nathaniel is not popular and does not seem all that bothered by this fact. Although put off by Isobel's working class background and dark eye makeup, he relents and gives her a chance. It is interesting to watch their dynamics change over the course of the story.
As for another central character, Isobel's mother could have used some more character development, but her relationship with Isobel is realistic. In many books, the lead character's mother is either portrayed as a saint or a demon, which is far removed from most peoples' experiences with their parents. Isobel's mother had wanted to be a trophy wife, but ended up a struggling single mom. She makes it clear that she blames Isobel to some degree for her circumstances. Isobel is also aware of the fact that she is not the daughter that her mother wanted, a preppy cheerleader type. The two characters have different worldviews and have difficulty seeing things from one another's perspectives, but they love each other and try to make things work.
The story is suspenseful and intense. Since I was reading aloud to Brian, I could not read it all in one shot, but I would read until my voice was too raspy to go on any further. I had such a hard time putting it down. Some of the reveals I saw coming, but I hadn't put everything together by the time I got to the end of the novel. Despite the nature of the subject matter, the book is not dark and gritty in the way that some mystery/horror is, which I appreciated. There were some intense moments, but, at least for me, it was never painful to read. I don't know if I'm articulating what I mean well, but by dark and gritty I'm thinking something along the lines of Flowers in the Attic or Saw, in which there are scenes so grotesque that they invoke a strong, adverse physiological reaction in the reader/viewer. Unraveling Isobel wasn't like that.
If you're interested in romance, Isobel's relationship with Nathaniel eventually heats up. Unlike the cliche in which the lead female character either changes herself to attract a man or undergoes a transformation after getting together with him, Isobel remains fundamentally the same. The relationship offers her a source of pleasure in a life that otherwise seems to be falling apart, but the central mystery and a talk with a psychologist have a larger impact on her character than Nathaniel does. They treat one another as equals, which is important.
All in all, Unraveling Isobel is an excellent read which I recommend highly to anyone interested in a YA mystery story.
