Death, Dickinson and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia by Jenny Torres Sanchez

"And now, I'll tell you the only thing that matters. It's that you make your own future. People come here for answers, looking for something, looking for hope or promise. He came here looking for confirmation....Confirmation is something we can never give you. Warnings, perhaps, but never confirmation. I can't confirm anything. Because the future is like clay, every day you mold it, every day people leave impressions that change its form. It's never concrete, it's always changing. We might see some things, possibilities, but you are the one who decides what form your life takes."
                       -the psychic reader to Frenchie

I chose this book for our book club in support of Jenny Torres Sanchez, the author. She is a member of our church and I had heard her read an excerpt at a church event where local authors and poets were invited to share their work. I was intrigued by the premise of a young woman's coping with the suicide of a peer. I chose the book knowing it is a young adult fiction and our group is far from young! I invited the author to our meeting to discuss the book and she did.

I thought the book was very well-written and the characters were believable. There was philosophy that made me think, such as the quote above and Colin's ideas on good and bad in Chapter 24. I enjoyed the poetry by Emily Dickinson which was so appropriately placed. The setting of Orlando was particularly interesting since it is our hometown. Many locations such as Greenwood Cemetery and Lake Eola are very familiar to us.

The novel is an emotional ride, to say the least, as the main character Frenchie deals with confusion, grief, guilt and depression. The juxtaposition of THAT NIGHT and TONIGHT was an excellent technique to keep the reader engaged.

We had a rousing discussion of the novel at our meeting. It was wonderful to have the author there to tell us of her writing process and how this novel came about. We had no prepared discussion questions this time but we didn't need them; group members had so many questions to ask the author. Of course she autographed copies of our books for us, as well.

I rated Death, Dickinson and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia a 4 and the group's average was the same.  I had a feeling if the readers were in their teens and twenties it would have been higher! This was Jenny's second novel. I plan to read her first, The Downside of Being Charlie soon.