KILLING AURORA

A familiar voice to anyone who has listened to John Marsden's hugely popular Tomorrow (When the War Began) series, Suzi Dougherty is a magician with young Australian voices. The adults and peers in Web's life seem about to drive the young teen, a budding scientist, to build a bomb in her bedroom. She spends her free time considering the pros and cons of suicide. The one problem that jerks Web out of her own morass is poor Aurora, "the incredible shrinking girl," who doesn't want to be friends with Web at first. She just wants to go on her anorexic way, enjoying fellow coeds' comments about how great she looks as she wastes away. Web resourcefully responds to a problem that is not her own, while Dougherty gives this probing descent into the teenage psyche a beating heart. M.C. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC 02/ JAN 03]