You say you want a Revolution?

Andi's little brother has died. Her mother is lost in despair. And, her father has left the family for a younger, pregnant girlfriend. She feels alone, abandoned, and suicidal. Andi's genius IQ can't help her figure a way to fix her family or herself. At the brink of failing her senior year of high school, she comes home one night to find her father has committed her mother to a mental hospital and expects Andi to accompany him to Paris on a business trip.
Having little choice in the matter, Andi glumly goes. Once there she finds the journal of a young girl, hidden since the French Revolution. Recovered from the catacombs beneath Paris, the journal tells of tragedy and speaks of hope. Andi finds comfort in reading the story of another young girl who was forced to play along as a Revolution tears her family, her country and her life apart. But as Andi reads, she grows so engrossed that she becomes unable to tell the past from the present and finds herself in a revolution of a whole different kind.

In her book, Revolution, Jennifer Donnelly deftly weaves together a story that transcends time. Citing popular musical lyrics throughout, she brings the past alive connecting it to the present through descriptive images, parallel story lines, and the realization that as history repeats itself, so does music. The suspense is all engrossing, and I found myself up until the wee hours of the morning, just wanting to read one more chapter, to find out one more detail, to pick up one more clue. Like Andi, the main character, I got carried away in a story that wasn't my own finding it difficult to tear myself away to face my reality.

I highly recommend Revoltion if you want a book that will provide you an escape to another time, another world, another life. Just don't forget to come back.