Mormon Artists Group
Summer Book Club
2012
Dispirited, as it turns out, is less a novel about a disembodied spirit than a romance novel featuring characters who feel disconnected from those around them. The story revolves around Cathy, a senior in high school who has been relocated from New York City to an upstate New York village, Kashkawan, to live with her mother and new step-father. Perkins writes about teen love convincingly. The object of the heroine’s affection is a boy with his own problems, named Rich. Their budding love is awkward, stumbling and tentative. Yes, it occasionally feels like Twilight. Any reader can be forgiven for having mini-flashbacks to Meyer’s setting of Forks, but this is no wannabe novel.
The thing that keeps it fresh for me is the natural ways the author injects mystery into the story. She happens upon a magical house that comes alive. And when she encounters the dispirited boy of the book’s opening pages, the story becomes a quest to help him. Cathy is a strong, unique character. She is Nancy Drew with a dose of X-Files and Stephen King tossed in.
I have a sixteen-year old daughter, and I am going to make sure she reads this novel. Cathy is the kind of character that my daughter should meet.
Cathy and Rich
7/20/12
“Low and insistent, with a steady rhythm, it sounded like a heartbeat, or what the pulse of a giant might be like. Cathy turned slowly. The stone under her hands was no longer cool--it felt almost blood warm. She crawled toward the front door and crouched next to it.”