2005 book 108

helen oyeyemi's the icarus girl
i tried to buy this book about three times while on vacation and none of the stores had it, so yay for the regulator! and ooh, it was pretty darn good. it's about a half nigerian, half british girl who's sort of troubled and lonely, and she makes a friend while on a trip to nigeria to see her relatives, and only slowly realizes that her friend isn't at all what she appears. reading this in the middle of a sunny afternoon cut down the creepiness factor a little, but had i been reading this at night i'd have probably been too scared to sleep before seeing how it ended. really a nice take on the identity crisis of the biracial child, with a good helping of stuff on the problems with girls and friendships--and, of course, of stuff that's scary and compelling.

ps: this book was written by a nineteen year old girl, which isn't really evident until the hilariously high-schoolish acknowledgements at the end.