A Room Away From the Wolves

July 16, 2018
When Sabina “Bina” Tremper, 17, is asked to leave the home she shares with her mother and stepfamily, she knows just what to do: she heads to Catherine House in Manhattan’s West Village, the women’s residence that her mother once called home for two glorious months. Named for Catherine de Barra, a young woman who leapt to her death from the home’s rooftop more than 100 years ago, the home serves as a refuge for young women. But it also seems to bind them to the home through a set of archaic rules and pledges. When Bina befriends her neighbor Monet Mathis, who seems to know more about the strange house than she lets on, Bina begins to piece together her mother’s past—and that of Catherine House itself. Suma (The Walls Around Us) poetically spins this riveting tale, part ghost story, part Bildungsroman, which may require a second reading for those not paying close attention as the story unfolds. As Monet says, “If you’re supposed to be somewhere, you’ll find it. If you’re not, you’ll walk right by and miss it.” Ages 14–up. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel, Goderich and Bourret.

Starred review from August 1, 2018

Gr 9 Up-A gorgeously written and evocative ghost tale set in a storied boardinghouse for troubled young women. Seventeen-year-old Sabina Tremper and her mother have always been thick as thieves, embarking on bold adventures, including running away from their first home. However, after Bina gets caught in a series of lies and destructive behavior, their bond becomes strained. When her mother decides to send her away for the summer to ease tensions with her new husband and teenage stepdaughters, Bina feels betrayed. She takes all the cash she can find and steals off into the night. Her plan is to go to New York City and rent a room at Catherine House, just as her mother did the summer before she was born. In this lost-in-time house of secrets, Bina discovers a safe haven to confront her personal demons, some mysterious and powerful talismans from the past, and a kindred spirit whom she can trust. The teen soon realizes that once a young woman takes up residence, she cannot leave Catherine House. Suma is a masterly storyteller, here creating a thoroughly unreliable modern narrator in a deliciously creepy Gothic haunt. VERDICT With much to mull over and discuss, this is a taut and nuanced coming-of-age tale perfect for fans of E. Lockhart's When We Were Liars and Meg Wolitzer's Belzhar.-Luann Toth, School Library Journal

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2018
A young woman leaves home in search of a refuge where she can reinvent herself but discovers she can't escape the past.Sabina Tremper's mother kicks her out in order to put space between Bina and her volatile stepsisters. The next day, she arrives at Catherine House, a boardinghouse for young women in Manhattan's West Village, where her mother spent a long-ago summer that Bina grew up hearing stories about. Upon arriving, she receives a warning from the mother of a departing boarder: Don't move in. And the questions begin piling up. Why does the house seem to have an unbreakable hold on everyone who inhabits its century-old walls? Why is the landlady so pleased to have all the rooms filled in a particular manner? Who is Bina's new friend Monet Mathis, a reckless girl who hides behind colorful wigs? The house and its occupants have many secrets, but 17-year-old Bina is discouraged from asking questions. The lines separating reality from hallucination and outright lies is thin. Bina is a self-proclaimed chronic liar and a thief, an intersection that results in an unreliable first-person narrator from start to finish. However, her narration is quietly poetic. There's a little diversity among the boarders, although most default to white. Bina is white and Jewish; Monet has light brown skin.So nuanced it requires a second reading. (Suspense. 12-adult)

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July 1, 2018
Grades 9-12 Suma (The Walls around Us?, 2015) drapes her dark, enigmatic novel in a gauzy, supernatural veil, through which readers will observe a runaway teen's search for safety and an understanding of her mother's past. The iron gates of Catherine House promise to protect the young women who board there, whatever dangers they may be escaping. It's where Bina's mother briefly lived before giving birth to her, and after her stepsisters join in beating Bina up at a party, it's where she runs as well. Mystery thrums through the aging walls of Catherine House, where the residents possess secret knowledge that Bina does not. Its founder, Catherine de Barra's, photo seems alive in her frame, and requisite ceremonies and vows further add to the house's mystique. As she tries to unravel Catherine's story, clouds of memory drift through Bina's narrative, offering clues to Bina's history and that of her mother. Suma's surreal writing examines the blurred edges of life, lies, freedom, and mother-daughter relationships, leaving the reader with questions and a tangled sense of wonder.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2018
Seventeen-year-old Bina Tremper (a self-confessed liar) has decided to run away. Sick of her mother's distrust and her stepsisters' bullying, she heads for Manhattan's West Village to stay in the same women-only boardinghouse where her mother had roomed eighteen years earlier. All Bina wants is peace, independence, and maybe a bookstore job. But once she enters Catherine House, she is confronted with ghosts both real and imagined. Catherine de Barra, the house's dead matriarch, appears to watch from her photo on the wall; Bina sees empty rocking chairs rock and smells phantom odors; and all the other young women, except her enigmatic neighbor Monet, seem to have sprung from a different time and place. What is the true nature of Catherine House, and is Bina as safe there as she had hoped to be? Suma's (The Walls Around Us, rev. 3/15) latest gothic chiller contains all the components her fans have come to expect: an unreliable narrator; a haunted space; fraught, complicated female relationships; and a deliciously dark, moody atmosphere delivered in lyrical and evocative prose. Nothing Bina says can be trusted, so readers may occasionally find themselves lost in a muddle of duplicitous foreshadowing and dead-end clues. But those who persist will eventually be rewarded with an eerie reveal that folds gracefully into a sweetly melancholic resolution. jennifer hubert swan

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

January 1, 2019
Seventeen-year-old Bina (a self-confessed liar) runs away to Catherine House in Manhattan, where she's confronted with ghosts both real and imagined. Suma's Gothic chiller contains an unreliable narrator; a haunted boardinghouse; complicated female relationships; and a deliciously dark, moody atmosphere delivered in lyrical and evocative prose. Those who persist through duplicitous foreshadowing and dead-end clues will be rewarded with an eerie reveal that folds gracefully into a sweetly melancholic resolution.

(Copyright 2019 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)