Revolution

Donnelly, Jennifer.  Revolution.


It's your senior year in high school and you might fail.  Andi Alpers is on the verge of failing her senior year and all because she hasn't written her senior thesis.  She doesn't even have a clue what to write about.  The worst part is that she feels angry at the world.  Her father for leaving, her mother for not being able to cope, and the loss of her brother, Truman.  She is taking her grief and anger out on too much drink and drugs.  She is slowly losing her grip on reality.  It doesn't make sense when her father tells her she will go with him to Paris over Christmas break where she will write her paper.

Paris is a ghostly place for Andi.  One day she finds a diary, hundreds of years old, and more ghosts appear in the lines of the writings.  The owner of the diary, Alexandrine, knew death and heartbreak also.  On a midnight walk through the catacombs under the city, Andi finds herself back in the time of the diary, the period of Louis Charles, the lost king of France.  She finds he has been imprisoned by Orleans to keep Charles off the throne.  The rest is history, they find the young king dead in his cell.  Andi finds her way out of the dream of being in Alexandrine's place, and home with her father.  She writes her paper and has only to complete the summary when it's time to go home.

I felt that the drugs and drinking were a little too much for some high school students.  Maybe, that was the only way to cope with their lives, but most people would not go that far to forget.  Andi was pretty hooked on her Quells, and chasing them down with bourbon or another hard liquor was super bad for her.  In the end, she does finally get her act together.  This book was a really good read, and would read this author again.