Ellen, Laura. Blind Spot.

Ellen, Laura.  Blind Spot.    Houghton Mifflin/ Harcourt Brace    332p  $16.99      978-0-547-76344-6 2012  hs   E-BN        Realistic Fiction

           

When a truck driver tries to cross the shallow section of the Birch River that is used in the winter as an ice bridge, the bridge breaks and he and his truck are plunged into the river.  As rescuers fight the frigid waters in an effort to save the driver and his truck, a girl’s body is discovered.  She is identified as a troubled teen named Tricia, who has been missing for six months.

In other action, Roz is placed in the Special Ed room at school because she suffers from macular degeneration, causing a severe blind spot in her vision.  She meets others in the class who have been placed there for various reasons, including Tricia, who convinces her to buy marijuana for her to help Tricia through her heroin addiction.  This act sets off a spiral of events involving many diverse, intertwined characters and relationships, including an athlete, a teacher, drug dealers and other students.  In the end, Roz and the others discover that Tricia was not the person she was perceived to be, nor were the circumstances that surrounded her disappearance what they seemed to be.

This suspenseful story leads the reader on an adventure that reveals that things are not always what they seem, and the ways that deception can impact and change reality.  Laura Ellen has created a complex and exciting novel featuring unusual circumstances, diverse characters, and physical and mental disabilities as symbolic elements that define and depict friendship, deception, and diversity.  The refreshingly original, fast-paced plot and well-described, multifaceted and detailed characters make this an excellent young-adult novel.

Diversity–Fiction, Suspense–Fiction, Special Education-Fiction   

                                                      --Virginia McGarvey