Held

October 1, 2011
Held hostage by a terrorist group somewhere in Europe, Chloe finds herself increasingly attracted to her captor as her mother and friends back home do everything they can to free her. Chloe was working in Greece over the summer and is known for how carefully she manages her life. When she is kidnapped on the side of a road, she is really out of control and frightened. Blindfolded and drugged, Chloe gradually realizes that she is being held as a trade for the release of prisoners whom her captor believes to have been unjustly prosecuted. Her main relationship is with one man who is gentle and kind and eventually becomes her lover. Chapters written by Chloe after the fact detail events and alternate with notes, letters, e-mail messages, news reports, Facebook posts and webpages. It is in these interpolations that readers see how Chloe's advocates manipulate facts themselves in order to effect her rescue. At the end, psychologists put her words in the context of how others have responded, challenging her veracity. This eminently discussable novel continually asks readers to consider whether ends justify means and how power and control affect relationships. They take the journey with Chloe through paralyzing fear toward what seems like love. Is it? Less thriller than psychological puzzler, this novel effectively keep readers guessing. (Suspense. 12 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2011
Grades 8-11 Chloe's summer vacation in Greece is going smashinglyuntil the 17-year-old is grabbed from behind, bound and gagged, drugged, and taken to a nondescript warehouse where she will spend many months in confinement with only her abductor as company. The surprise is that it's far less grueling than it sounds. Her late-twenties kidnapper is kind and gentle, stocking the room with food, books, exercise equipment, bath soapsanything she wants. Writing this first-person account from a hotel room after her release, Chloe recalls her slow transition from terror into much-more-complicated emotions. Ravel writes with such lucidity that it's a shame we can see the Stockholm syndrome coming from so far away (as soon as Chloe mentions her abductor's sensuous mouth, we know where this is going). That said, Ravel refuses to demonize either character and supplies a level of detail that will make readers believe every word. Even the chapter breaksglimpses at the news reports, Facebook posts, etc., of the outside worldbring additional sophistication to this smart, daring romantic drama.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)