Karen S. (BoysMom) - My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Absorbing tale of a teenage girl trying to come to terms with her mother's death.
When Ana Petruscu was eleven years old, she lost her mother and father in a double suicide, or at least that is what her maternal grandmother claimed. Yet three years later, at only sixteen years of age, she knew there was much more to the story than the tragically bare facts. Shuffled from one boarding school to another by her guardian/stepfather, Rogers, Ana repeatedly acts out and is expelled until finally she gets what she secretly wanted all along: to return to her childhood home in Bucharest â the house where her mother took her own life â where Ana can search for the answers she so desperately craves.
The Adventures of Miss Vulpe: A Coming of Age Story for Adults is the first book in a series by author Maria Elena Sandovici, and it is mesmerizing. Ana is such an interesting character: sixteen-going-on-thirty-five, still a child but deceptively clever and manipulative beyond her years. She needs to understand why her mother died the way she did to get on with her own life and have a chance to heal and grow and leave behind her path of self-destruction. The actions she chooses to gain those answers, under the guise of Miss Vulpe, are doomed to failure and heartbreak, and I couldn't look away. I was gripped by her story and the desire to learn her ultimate fate.This is the tale of a love triangle with long-lasting consequences for the participants and their children. The story unfolds from two points of view and timelines: Ana's present and Richard's past, the past setting the stage for how the present day has been impacted. The adults of the piece are conflicted but weak in character, unable to remove themselves from their situation. Though they make some good efforts, they ultimately return to become embroiled again and again in this no-win drama.
Kicking off the decades-long chain of events is Ana's grandmother, a product of a different, tougher time with traditional parenting skills and harsh interpersonal skills, especially with her daughter, Louise. Then there is Louise, the rebellious daughter who fails to meet her parents' expectations and leaves home without the protective skills imbued by a healthy layer of self-worth and self-esteem. She falls in love with Richard, trapped in an unwanted marriage, but refusing to divorce his wife, a young woman equally doomed to marital limbo, with an absentee husband and a surprise baby to rear on her own. And then there's Rogers, Richard's boyhood best friend, whose first name we never learn and whom Louise turns to in an ill-fated ploy to galvanize Richard into taking the steps he must take for them to be together finally. To find peace, Louise turns to drugs and winds up firmly in the grasp of addiction.The triangles continue to form throughout the book. Even well after Louisa's death, one-on-one relationships seem always to be impacted by the presence of a third party, whether it's an individual physically present at the time (i.e., the sisters' relationship with each other as children and their mother) or only their memory (i.e., the sisters' relationship with each other as young adults and their mother).
In addition to Ana's desire for answers, which she eventually gets, she has a deep, aching longing to return to her childhood home in Bucharest. The characters travel, the settings move all over the globe, and the author makes you see and feel the essence of every destination. Besides an unforgettable family drama, this book will certainly promote wanderlust in its readers.I recommend THE ADVENTURES OF MISS VULPE to fiction readers who enjoy young adult stories, family dramas, and immersive international settings.
