Book Review: Flutter

[Arlen Kimmelman]

Flutter
by Gina Linko
Pub Date: 23 Oct 2012  
read courtesy of Netgalley.com

Note: I, too, received this as a galley copy to review many years ago, but I just got around to posting about it.

This was a quick read, well, a compelling read, because I was pulled along by the plot, the mystery of Emery's illness, and the connections all of the characters had. Time travel always messes with my head (think Back to the Future), so I had fun trying to piece the story together at the same time Emery was. Then... and I agree with other reviewers on this, too ... I had my WTF moment at the end. If I hadn't read the print version and instead read the Netgalley digital version, I might have missed the author's note that she likes to pursue "What if...?". Only this note, that the author was purporting that alternative inevitabilities are her passion, allowed me to understand why Linko surprised her readers with this twist.

Overall, this was good, interesting YA writing. Yet, though I understand why Linko couldn't have built up to this ending earlier, it really did come out of nowhere with the minor exception of a conversation Emery and Ash had late in the story.

This book would be hard to classify as scifi, because it turns into fantasy. Recommend this book to readers who like the book The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold or the movie The Sixth Sense.

Caution: Spoiler alerts:

1. Where did Dala go when she fluttered with Emery? If the past was an afterlife, then did Emery kill Dala somehow?
2. How could Emery take people/things from the present back and forth to the afterlife? Did they temporarily die, too?
3. Why could Emery see her grandmother, Ash's brother, her mom, but not Ash's mom in the afterlife?
4. In hindsight, it makes sense that Emery couldn't see Ash's father in the afterlife, but that still doesn't explain why she didn't see his mother.