The Memory Trees

September 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-A family feud lasting 12 generations is at the heart of this introspective novel. Eight years ago, Sorrow Lovegood's 16-year-old sister was killed in a fire, her mother suffered a nervous breakdown, and Sorrow was taken away to live with her father in Florida. Now Sorrow, at 16, returns to the Vermont apple orchard where she grew up in order to fill in the hazy parts of her memory. She is immediately reminded of the fierce animosity between her historically matriarchal clan and the neighboring Abrams family, who have been trying to take the Lovegood land for centuries. Flashbacks of Sorrow's reclusive ancestors depict many hardships, including the murder of nine-year-old twins by an Abrams man and a Lovegood mother who killed her children rather than have them starve during a harsh winter. Slowly, Sorrow begins to piece together what happened during the last days of her sister's life, and her own role in the tragic events. But a startling suicide and more heartrending revelations occur before understanding and healing can finally begin. The slow-paced, mostly quiet narrative is interrupted several times by short bursts of anger that generally involve Sorrow or another character uncharacteristically flinging F-bombs. This brooding tale of a strange family and its secrets may appeal to readers who enjoy lyrical stories of grief and redemption. VERDICT A good choice for large YA collections.-Martha Simpson, Stratford Library Association, CT

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2017
Grades 9-12 Sixteen-year-old Sorrow Lovegood was raised on a remote Vermont apple orchard by her bipolar mother and mute grandmother. Since the late 1700s, Lovegood women have tended this orchard, kept their name when marrying, and held to their practices and beliefs despite the ridicule of townsfolk and persecution by their neighbors, the Abrams family. Eight years ago, Sorrow's 16-year-old sister, Patience, died in a fire under mysterious circumstances, and Sorrow went to live with her father and his family in Miami. Now Sorrow returns to Vermont for a summer to confront her past. Wallace has created a fascinating matriarchal backstory with touches of magical realism that will appeal to readers of Alice Hoffman. Clearly labeled chapters provide flashbacks to previous Lovegood generations. While the very real mystery of Patience's death is sometimes at odds with the magical realism of Lovegood women and their orchard, this dichotomy mirrors Sorrow's own predicament of living in the present while accepting and embracing her family's history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2018
Sorrow Lovegood left her family's generations-old Vermont apple orchard eight years ago after her sister died. Now sixteen, Sorrow returns seeking answers--about Patience's death and about the "shadows in her memory." Interspersed flashbacks provide a rich, historical context to her quest. This is a dark, brooding mystery about a matrilineal family steeped in tragedy, but a hopeful ending honors the enduring power of love.

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

January 1, 2018
It's been eight years since Sorrow Lovegood set foot on her family's ancestral land: a Vermont apple orchard planted in the 1700s and maintained by a succession of tenacious but troubled women. Sorrow left after her teenage sister, Patience, died in a fire and their mother was taken into psychiatric care. Now, at sixteen, Sorrow anguishes over the "shadows in her memory" that blur her past; seeking answers, she returns to the orchard for the summer. Wallace paints Vermont in lush and occasionally eerie detail: the family cemetery, lined with black oaks marking twelve generations of Lovegood graves and peppered with inexplicably appearing antique trinkets, is a particularly unnerving backdrop for important scenes. Sorrow treads carefully around her reticent mother, her mute grandmother, and the suspicious townspeople while she pieces together details about her own childhood and her sister's death; in the process, she uncovers unexpected layers to a centuries-old dispute between sparring local families. Sorrow's single-minded fixation on her sister's fate doesn't allow for much of her own character development, but interspersed flashback chapters provide a rich, historic context to her quest; some follow Sorrow and Patience's last day together while others are vignettes from the lives of the girls' puritanically named Lovegood ancestors. This is a dark and brooding mystery about a matrilineal family steeped in tragedy, but a hopeful ending honors the enduring power of love. jessica tackett macdonald

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

Starred review from July 15, 2017
Seeking understanding about the circumstances surrounding her sister's death, Sorrow returns home for the first time since the tragedy eight years earlier.Following her 16-year-old sister's death and her mother's breakdown, 8-year-old Sorrow began living with her father in Florida. Now, realizing that she has forgotten many details surrounding the fire her sister died in, the white teen demands to return to the family apple orchard in Vermont. Started by a female relative 12 generations ago, both the orchard and the strongly matriarchal family structure have endured the ravages of hard times and loss--much of which is exacerbated by their longtime feud with the neighboring Abrams family. Flashbacks capture the feud's beginning as well as unflinching scenes highlighting the terrible ways both families have escalated the conflict. Sorrow's interactions with the Abrams sisters signal that the animosity continues in the youngest generation. But spending time in the gorgeously mystical orchard begins reviving Sorrow's memories, raising questions about the feud and the fire. Sorrow's quietly fierce determination to break through the family's silent secrets exposes the grievances that tie the families together as much as they hold them apart. The novel is Sorrow's story of loss, the story of a family feud, and occasionally an expose on how small-town traditions perhaps unwittingly encourage a bubbling animosity to continue for generations. An absorbing, lyrically drawn mystery, examination of grief, and cautionary tale. (Fiction. 14-adult)

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