Young Adult Fiction — Review

Spider’s Song

by Anita Daher
Penguin Canada, 2007
ISBN 978-0-14-305297-5
$12.99, 224 pp, ages 12–18
www.penguin.ca

At first, this novel unfolds in a fairly predictable way as a piece of contemporary fiction for teens: child feeling isolated because of absent parents, left with grandparent in new town, excluded by in- group at school, turns to risky behaviour in order to cope, befriended by another outcast classmate. But as the plot unfolds, the tension mounts and becomes more sinister in tone. AJ, the female protagonist, gradually begins to realize that the person who is posing as her long- lost father is not who he pretends to be, and at last she learns the truth about her real father. It is not until the very end that answers to questions about why AJ’s family has been so secretive about her father are revealed. An entertaining read for the target age group, Spider’s Song also warns of the very real danger of public blogging.

Reviewed by Diana Mumford

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