The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper

Character development is my only qualm as the action pace is good and the dialogue believable. By mixing the forms, she improves the character development of a typical play, but decreases the character development of a typical novel. This is endearing, but all the comings and goings hurt the development of character that is standard to the novel form. Harper does an excellent job getting the feel of a Shakespearean play with characters entering and exiting in chapters she’s labeled as scenes. However, their story evolves more like A Midsummer Night’s Dream than Romeo and Juliet. Each brings a unique desire, motivation or pain to the summer. The Juliet Club is no exception to this rule: Six teens (3 Americans - 3 Italians) embark on a summer seminar concerning The Bard. The nature of the beast lends itself well to a hormonally raging mindset. This is why educators begin units on Shakespeare with that very play. But to a teen, one of the first thoughts will be Romeo and Juliet. An Author s Note explains that Lily Dale is a real place and tells readers how to find further information if they are interested.Mention the name William Shakespeare and you will conjure many things to many people. The ensuing battle of wills is a blast to read about mostly because of the sarcastic dialog between Sparrow and Luke, but also because of the tricky way Luke reveals bit-by-bit why it is so important for him to communicate with his family. He tells her that he has a message that has to be delivered and that she has to be the one to deliver it. Both boy and ghost are cute, of course, and the ghost may just be more stubborn than she is. There, she meets a new boy haunted by a teen ghost.

Since she is very stubborn, and has developed techniques for ignoring the ghosts, this has worked - until she starts high school. Almost everyone in her tiny community of Lily Dale, New York, makes a living in some way through delivering messages from the dead to the living, and Sparrow has no intention of joining their ranks. She has also been hiding from the ghosts themselves.

However, since the age of five, she has been hiding these talents from her eccentric family of six sisters, mother, and grandmother, who all have similar, lesser, talents. So special that she not only senses the presence of spirits, she also sees them, hears them, and even smells them. Sparrow Delaney is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter.

The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper