Shelley Hrdlitschka

Allegra Whitman, 17, daughter of two musicians, has just transferred to a new high school for the performing and fine arts. A gifted dancer with aspirations to go professional, Allegra also has considerable musical talent. When music theory teacher, Noel Rocchelli, will not permit her to drop his course—even though she has completed equivalent course work and received certification from the National Music Academy--Allegra is initially incensed. After acing a course challenge exam—which show more should exempt her--she is persuaded by the young, handsome Mr. Rocchelli to stay and work on a special project: creating a conductor’s score based on a simple melody that he has composed. The teacher points out that Allegra can learn still more about music and also bring balance to her artistic life by working in a different area of the arts.

One of Allegra’s more interesting challenges in the novel is her introversion. Her mother is accepting of her daughter’s temperament—observing on one occasion to Allegra’s father: “she’s just not social.” Dad, on the other hand, is concerned enough to insist on therapy for the then ten-year-old girl. As for Allegra herself--“I never really got kids my age . . . All the drama and the things they talk about . . . well, none of it interested me. So I removed myself, I guess, and then it got so I didn’t even know how to act with them,” she later tells her teacher.

Now, at the new performing and fine arts school, Allegra (whose symptoms might qualify her for the somewhat questionable diagnosis of “social anxiety disorder”) makes fledgling attempts at friendships, one with a boy called Spencer. It doesn’t hurt to have a musician for a dad, a member of the popular band, “Loose Ends”. Allegra’s new friends come over to her home one evening for an informal chilli supper and an opportunity to watch the band rehearse, and all goes surprisingly well. But then things take a downward turn on the home front, and a ripple effect is felt in the fragile social life Allegra has been coaxing along at school. Dad’s years of touring have taken a toll on her parents’ marriage, and Allegra is devastated when her father, with whom she had been rediscovering a bond through music, moves out. Too reserved to share her distress with her new friends, Allegra shuts them out. Now unable to collaborate with her father on her special music project, she spends increasing amounts of time with the attractive Mr. Rocchelli. The two share tea and some tentative confidences, as they work together on composing the conductor’s script. Unwisely, teacher and student often meet after school when other students and staff are not around. More and more, Allegra forgets her commitment to dance for time with her teacher by whom she feels "seen" and "understood". This doesn’t go unnoticed by her new “friends”, one of whom finds “evidence” of the inappropriateness of this student-teacher relationship. School administrators and police rush in and Allegra’s life is thrown into further turmoil. I won’t say what the outcome of the police investigation is, but it isn’t quite what the reader expects. It certainly is not the career or reputation destroying experience for the teacher that it likely would be in real life.

From reading Hrdlitschka’s previous works for young adults, I know she likes to tackle “difficult" subjects— from cutting/self-mutilation in KAT’s FALL, to teenaged pregnancy in DANCING NAKED, and forced marriage within a fundamentalist religious cult in SISTER WIFE. Having an artistic central character is something of a departure for her, but her interest in Allegra’s isolation and difference from others is consistent with her earlier explorations of teenaged isolation.

ALLEGRA is an interesting read that might well be hand-sold to more mature, artistic teenaged girls. There isn’t a lot of action here, however, and the importance of music, specifically music composition, may not hold much appeal for many in the targeted age group.

To my mind, there are some other problems with the book, too--its premise, for starters. Why would a teacher insist a student take a course when she clearly already has the credentials? There’s some suggestion that the music theory class won’t run without more warm bodies. . . but even so. . . the idea strains credibility. Another problem is that the new friends Allegra makes become malicious rather too suddenly. It is difficult to know exactly what their motivations are in reporting on Allegra: concern? retaliation at being shut out by her? It isn’t clear. Additionally, although Allegra is a dancer, she is seldom shown in the dance class. As for her passion for dance? I couldn't see any.

Some will no doubt be uncomfortable with Hrdlitschka’s exploration of an “inappropriate” relationship between student and teacher. However, I recall some years back Garret Freymann-Weyr, an American writer of young adult novels, wrote a complex, emotionally sensitive book called STAY WITH ME in which a sixteen year old has a friendship with and sexual interest in a 31-year-old man. While one might approach that book and Hrdlitschka’s with some wariness, expecting the creepiness of a LOLITA perhaps, the relationships depicted are actually not predatory. In reading ALLEGRA, I believed: yes, this could happen. I have to say I admire Hrdlitschka for taking on the challenge.

I recommend ALLEGRA, with some reservations, for high school and public libraries.

Thanks to Orca Publishers for providing me with an advance reading copy of the novel. show less

I received this eARC from Orca Book Publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of this book in any way.

DNF at 22%

I just couldn't do it. This book is beyond mediocre, it's downright offensively bad. It's boring, the pacing is dismal, none of the characters are interesting or act remotely normal, the dialogue is wooden and childish, the writing is simple and awkward, the worldbuilding is awful, and it felt like a sequel, not a spin-off. I haven't show more read the other book that supposedly introduced Jon, the horny and passive MC, but this isn't a sequel, so I shouldn't have to read any outside material to understand this character, the world he lives in, or get any grasp on what is going on. I thought this was going to be a similar book to The Chosen One, a novel about a girl who lives in a polygamist compound and falls in love, but is assigned to marry her uncle, and has to make a perilous decision to abandon everything she's ever known for a world she knows nothing of or live a life where she can never be happy. Instead, I got backstory told through long exposition paragraphs, horny teenage boys ogling boobs, emotionless passages about characters that were never introduced, and soap opera drama ("She's in the hospital!" "She's getting married on Sunday!" "To your father!") Like, please. Are you kidding me? I don't have time for garbage. show less

I received this eARC from Orca Book Publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of this book in any way.

DNF at 22%

I just couldn't do it. This book is beyond mediocre, it's downright offensively bad. It's boring, the pacing is dismal, none of the characters are interesting or act remotely normal, the dialogue is wooden and childish, the writing is simple and awkward, the worldbuilding is awful, and it felt like a sequel, not a spin-off. I haven't show more read the other book that supposedly introduced Jon, the horny and passive MC, but this isn't a sequel, so I shouldn't have to read any outside material to understand this character, the world he lives in, or get any grasp on what is going on. I thought this was going to be a similar book to The Chosen One, a novel about a girl who lives in a polygamist compound and falls in love, but is assigned to marry her uncle, and has to make a perilous decision to abandon everything she's ever known for a world she knows nothing of or live a life where she can never be happy. Instead, I got backstory told through long exposition paragraphs, horny teenage boys ogling boobs, emotionless passages about characters that were never introduced, and soap opera drama ("She's in the hospital!" "She's getting married on Sunday!" "To your father!") Like, please. Are you kidding me? I don't have time for garbage. show less

While polygamy and religious fundamentalism are hot topics for fiction right now, Sister Wife steps outside the box to present the truly compelling story of three different girls from the same polygamist sect.Two sisters and one outsider each speak from their own points of view, and Hrdlitschka weaves their voices seamlessly together for the sort of prose the reader is easily wrapped up in. Celeste will soon be fifteen and assigned a husband, but she has plenty of doubts about the Movement, show more unlike her sister, Nannette, who is as pure as they come. It is Taviana who is bold enough to speak her mind - a former teen prostitute, taken in by the Movement, only to be thrown out when it is clear her influence is "dangerous." But there are other ways for Celeste to discover the world outside, and as it gets closer and closer to Celeste's birthday, she knows she has a choice to make. This stirring novel may not tell the most original story, but it tells the story well. The characters will stay with you long after you've turned the last pages, making time you've spent with Sister Wife time well spent. show less