PEELING THE ONION

This Australian import covers much of the same territory explored in Cynthia Voigt's Izzy, Willy Nilly (1986): A popular, physically active teenager is severely injured in an auto accident, and must cope not only with pain and uncertainty about her future, but also with changes in relationships as her friends' lives seem to go on without her. Anna Duncan has just won a karate championship when her neck is broken in a car crash. Faced with the possibility that she may suffer permanent disability, she must rebuild her identity around drastically altered ideas of what a ``normal'' life will be for her. Some friends fail her; others (and her family) are steadfast. One romance founders on guilt and pity; a more mature love grows to take its place. Readers will perceive in the negligent handling of Anna's case a shocking degree of medical malpractice. The story of her recovery is told in the first person in short, unconnected episodes rather like diary entries. Anna's pain, fear, and dissociation from her former self are rendered so convincingly that readers will close the book believing they have encountered a primary source on trauma. (Fiction. 12+)