A World Without You

Starred review from April 25, 2016
Through two gripping and very different narrative voices, Revis (the Across the Universe trilogy) examines a family struggling with a child’s severe mental illness. Bo, whose omnipresent visual delusions have left him believing that he can manipulate time, attends a boarding school for children with “exceptional needs” while his sister, Phoebe, excels socially and academically back at home. “I don’t have the luxury of allowing myself to break,” she reflects, thinking of her parents. “Because if I break, they’ll break too.” Unable to accept that his girlfriend, Sofía, committed suicide, Bo blames himself for trapping her in 1692 Puritan Massachusetts, and focuses relentlessly on saving her. Though striking imagery, Revis conveys the vitality and terror of Bo’s reality: “I stare down at the chaotic, beautiful timestream spreading out in front of me.... Any chance I had of pulling the end of Sofía’s string from the vortex disappears before my eyes.” The siblings’ perspectives capture the family’s daunting emotional, financial, and clinical challenges, conflicted feelings, and growing mutual compassion, creating a story that’s both heartbreaking and hopeful. Ages 12–up. Agent: Merrilee Heifetz, Writers House.

May 1, 2016
In a special school on a small Massachusetts island, a boy struggles to find his place in time.Bo attends the Berkshire Academy for Children with Exceptional Needs. Narrating in the present tense, he explains the school's mission: training kids to master their supernatural powers and to hide them from the broader world. But something horrendous has happened: Bo, who time travels, took his girlfriend, Sofia, back to 1692 and accidentally left her there. As a brown-skinned Latina (Bo's white, which goes unspecified) who turns invisible, Sofia could face execution in the Puritan colony, which is enduring the Salem witch trials. Bo works doggedly to travel back in time and save her, but the timestream fights him, and someone may be controlling his mind. A trickle of textual clues and several first-person chapters from Bo's sister, Phoebe, reveal that delusions, dissociation, and psychosis are at work. Bo has severe mental illness, as do his classmates. His palpable torment, confusion, and belief in his powers build to a terrifying crescendo in a vivid conflagration scene. Bo sees a choice: the 21st century, where he's sick, or somewhere outside time with Sofia, where he has powers. At the end, the text steals Bo's voice and centrality by giving the closing narration to Phoebe--flipping Bo's story, suddenly and frustratingly, into a disabled-sibling tale. A page-turning psychological thriller in which mental illness is tragic. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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June 1, 2016

Gr 8 Up-Bo attends a private boarding school on an island off the Massachusetts coast. It's a prestigious school for students learning how to hone their unique powers. All the students there have special skills-Bo can travel through time; his girlfriend, Sofia, can make herself invisible; Gwen can produce fire from her hands; and Ryan can move things telekinetically. As the story opens, Bo is concerned. He's managed to jump Sofia back to 1692 and can't seem to get her back; he can see the thread that connects her, but can't grab hold. Meanwhile, Bo's supervisor, the Doctor, attempts to convince Bo that Sofia has committed suicide and that Bo needs to come to terms with this. Occasional chapters in his sister's voice help readers sort out the ramblings of a confused narrator and realize that Bo is at an inpatient facility for the mentally ill and is wrestling with fugue states that go on for days at a time. As a side note, the author's reputation for superlative speculative fiction, such as Across the Universe, casts a shadow of lingering doubt that leaves readers willing to suspend disbelief to the very end, yearning for Bo to actually be able to travel through time. VERDICT A compelling peek into the darkest corners of mental illness; hand this to those who enjoyed Nic Sheff's Schizo.-Leah Krippner, Harlem High School, Machesney Park, IL

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2016
Grades 8-11 In her latest, best-selling Revis adds to the growing list of YA contemporary fiction dealing with mental health disorders. Seventeen-year-old Bo attends Berkshire Academy, which he believes is a school for kids with superpowers, and struggles in the aftermath of his girlfriend, Sofia's, suicide. Convinced he can travel through time, Bo refuses to believe Sofia died. Instead, he's certain she's trapped in the year 1692. Intermittent chapters from his sister Phoebe's point of view serve as a counterpoint to his distorted perception of reality and show how his family struggles with Bo's dissociative disorder as he spirals out of control. While Bo's struggle is palpable, the treatment here lacks the depth of feeling and sophistication found in Neal Shusterman's Challenger Deep (2015). Though the twists and turns are driven more by plot necessity than stemming from character growth (unfortunately mostly absent in Phoebe's chapters), the accessible prose and capable storytelling will appeal to reluctant readers and Revis' fan base. Overall, a gripping exploration of a young man's struggle with delusions and grief. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Revis' Across the Universe series was a big hit, and her many fans wouldn't want a world without her latest offering.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2017
Two alternating, emotionally entangling first-person narrations present different versions of events: Bo tells readers that he attends an exclusive boarding school for students with supernatural powers; his sister Phoebe reveals that Bo suffered a mental breakdown. In YA's answer to Shutter Island, Bo's delusions ensnare readers, who will then find themselves unable to escape the terrified confusion and distrust as his reality shatters.

(Copyright 2017 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2016
Two alternating and emotionally entangling first-person narrations present different versions of reality and of the novel's events. Bo tells readers that he attends the Berkshire Academy for Children with Exceptional Needs, an exclusive boarding school for students with supernatural powers. Bo and his classmates are all learning to master their abilities, from telepathy to pyrokinesis to Bo's own power of traveling through time. But after a terrible accident that leaves Bo's girlfriend Sofia stranded in the past, government officials infiltrate the school, weakening Bo's powers and sabotaging his efforts as he desperately tries to rescue Sofia. Meanwhile, Phoebe, Bo's younger sister, is a driven, high-achieving high-school junior with limitless possibilities before her and no idea what to do with them. Phoebe's narration reveals that Bo suffered a mental breakdown and was sent to Berkshire to deal with his grandiose delusions of controlling time. Ever since then, Phoebe has dreamed of nothing but the freedom to be imperfect -- a freedom she has always envied Bo. When Bo's girlfriend commits suicide, Phoebe is frightened by her brother's further sinking into delusion and psychosis and by her own thoughts that her world would be more stable without him. In YA's answer to Shutter Island, Bo's belief in his powers ensnares readers, who will then find themselves unable to escape Bo's terrified confusion and distrust as the reality in which he has supernatural powers instead of severe mental illness begins to crack and finally shatters. anastasia m. collins

(Copyright 2016 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)