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The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma
This haunting and evocative tale of magical realism immerses readers in two settings that seem worlds apart. The book is told in alternating first-person voices from the perspective of two teenagers: lonely Amber, who at age 13 was convicted of murdering her abusive stepfather and sent to Aurora Hills, a juvenile detention facility, and Vee, an insecure yet ruthlessly ambitious Julliard-bound ballerina. Through Vee's and Amber's recollections, readers learn about talented, kind-hearted Ori, Vee's former best friend and a dancer herself, who after being convicted of a heinous crime is sent to Aurora Hills, where she becomes Amber's roommate—and where soon after a strange tragedy occurs.
Review from Booklist Reviews:
"We were alive. I remember it that way. We were still alive, and we couldn't make heads or tails of the darkness, so we couldn't see how close we were to the end." Spoken by Amber from inside the secure juvenile-detention center that has been her home for years, these chilling words foreshadow her terrible secret, the one she can't even admit to herself. As Amber's story of how Orianna, the "Bloody Ballerina," became her cell mate unfolds, another ballerina takes the stage with her own dark tale to tell. Eighteen-year-old Violet, a Juilliard dancer, is haunted by a secret relating to the time her best friend, Orianna, killed two girls, went to prison, and died. Intensity and dread build as the girls' stories coil and uncoil around each other, revealing the sinister truth in a startling, fantastical final twist. Suma excels in creating surreal, unsettling stories with vivid language, and this psychological thriller is no exception. Along the way, Suma also makes a powerful statement about the ease with which guilt can be assumed and innocence awarded, not only in the criminal-justice system but in our hearts-in the stories we tell ourselves. A fabulous, frightening read.
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