The Walls Around Us
School year: Lower 6th, Upper 6th, Year 10, Year 11, Year 8, Year 9
No. of pages 336
Published: 2016
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This book is the winner of numerous awards
This book has been graded for interest at 14-18 years.
There are 336 pages in this book.
It is aimed at Young Adult readers. The term Young Adult (YA) is used for books which have the following characteristics: (1) aimed at ages 12-18 years, US grades 7-12, UK school years 8-15, (2) around 50-75k words long, (3) main character is aged 12-18 years, (4) topics include self-reflection, internal conflict vs external, analyzing life and its meaning, (5) point of view is often in the first person, and (6) swearing, violence, romance and sexuality are allowed.
This book was published in 2016 by Algonquin Books (division of Workman) .
Nova Ren Suma was a fellow in fiction with the New York Foundation for the Arts and received an MFA in fiction from Columbia University. She is the author of Imaginary Girls and she lives in New York. Find out more at novaren. com or follow her on Twitter at @novaren.
This book has been nominated for the following awards:
Edgar Allan Poe Award - YA
This book was recognised in the YA category by the Edgar Allan Poe Award.
Tayshas Reading
This book was recognised by the Tayshas Reading.
Cybils Award - Speculative Fiction
This book was recognised in the Speculative Fiction category by the Cybils Award. The Cybils Awards is a group of readers passionate about seeking out and recognizing books that represent diversity, inclusion, and appropriate representation for children and teens. To accomplish that goal, the Cybils Awards works to recognize books written for children and young adults that combine both the highest literary merit and popular appeal.
"[An] Intricately plotted psychological horror story . . . With evocative language, a shifting timeline, and more than one unreliable narrator, Suma subtly explores the balance of power between the talented and the mediocre, the rich and the poor, the brave and the cowardly--and the unpleasant truths that are released when these scales are upset." --New York Times Book Review
"[A] supernatural page-turner . . . In [Suma's] story, some people are guilty and damnable, and some are innocent and good -- and the ones who fall in between are simply innocuous. This stark character classification isn't a flaw, but rather, a demonstration of Suma's fantastic writing. Her images, even the horrible ones, linger like dust and glitter after an epic stage performance." --The Boston Globe
"Gripping. . . Just try to put this down." --Shelf Awareness for Readers, starred review
" [A] powerful novel . . . The compelling narrative, written in scintillating prose and featuring incredibly real characters, brings the two stories together in an explosive finale with a supernatural twist that results in a satisfying resolution to the struggle between the guilt and evil depicted here." --VOYA
"The Walls Around Us passionately testifies to the ways in which girls are walled up, held down, fenced in. It's a gorgeously written, spellbinding ghost story forged from ugly reality. . . 'Everything I know about bombs tells me they are built to explode, ' Amber observes at one point. Nova Ren Suma's prose hums with such power and fury that when the explosions do happen, they seem unavoidable." --Chicago Tribune
"Suma excels in creating surreal unsettling stories with vivid language, and this psychological thriller is no exception. . . A fabulous, frightening read." --Booklist, starred review
"A tour-de-force packing immense emotional power . . . Suma takes risks here that few authors are capable of, and most readers do not dare hope for."--Locus Magazine
"Suma craftily sets the two stories against one another, moving between Violet's fiercely grounded account and Amber's hauntingly destabilized one, enticing readers to figure out how the pieces go together . . . Readers who loved the author's spooky but redemptive 17 & Gone) and who are looking for something a little more vengeful will curl up happily with this."--BCCB, starred review
"A suspenseful tour de force, a ghost story of the best sort, the kind that creeps into your soul and haunts you." --Libba Bray, author of The Diviners and A Great and Terrible Beauty
"Fearlessly imagined and deliciously sinister, The Walls Around Us is hypnotic, luring the reader deeper and deeper into its original, shocking narrative." --Michelle Hodkin, author of The Mara Dyer Trilogy
"The wholly realistic view of adolescents meeting the criminal justice system is touched at first with the slimmest twist of an otherworldly creepiness, escalating finally to the truly hair-raising and macabre. Eerie, painful and beautifully spine-chilling." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Written in luscious and deliciously creepy prose not easy to forget . . . This is a story about guilt and innocence, about secrets and how deep we let people into those places within us, and it's a story about how the past can define our present, even if we try desperately to keep that past under wraps. Put it on your radars now; this is an outstanding literary young adult novel more than worth the wait." --Book Riot
"In lyrical, authoritative prose, Suma weaves the disparate lives of [the] three girls into a single, spellbinding narrative that explores guilt, privilege, and complicity with fearless acuity . . . The twisting, ghostly tale of Ori's life, death, and redemption is unsettling and entirely engrossing." --The Horn Book Magaine, starred review
"This haunting and evocative tale of magical realism immerses readers in two settings that seem worlds apart . . . Suma's unflinchingly honest depiction of the potentially destructive force of female friendship and skillful blending of gritty realism with supernatural elements is reminiscent of Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls, and the eerie mood she evokes is unnervingly potent." --School Library Journal, starred review