Emily's Dress and Other Missing Things (review)
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The suicide of her mother and the disappearance of her best friend, Richy, have left Claire reeling. She's caught in a grief and guilt cycle where she blames herself for arriving home too late to save her mother and for letting Richy go alone to meet a guy he was chatting with on the internet. She takes refuge in her writing, breaking late at night into Emily Dickinson's nearby house, where she feels a strange sense of peace. Her dark poems alarm her student teacher, Tate, and he follows her, hoping only to save her from self-destructing but instead ending up getting involved with her romantically. When Richy's body is finally found, Tate discovers a lead, and he and Claire set out to expose Richy's killer. Burak's airy, lyrical prose has a poetic sensibility that will sustain readers as they negotiate initially mysterious narrative gaps, and they will soon catch up to the story's knowledge. This subtle and effective narrative technique charts Claire's character arc as she slowly emerges from an emo fog into a more grounded stance, transforming from a melancholy Sylvia Plath wannabe to a smart, likable, even slightly feisty person to whom really sad things have happened. Readers will appreciate the emotional quality of both the mystery and the romance, and they'll find Claire's resilience heartening.
