Revolution (novel)

Last updated
Revolution
Revolution (novel).jpg
First edition (US)
Author Jennifer Donnelly
LanguageEnglish
GenreYoung Adult Historical Fiction
PublisherDelacorte Press (US)
Bloomsbury (UK)
Published in English
October 2010
Pages472
ISBN 0-385-73763-7

Revolution is a young adult historical fiction novel by Jennifer Donnelly about a girl named Andi Alpers who is struggling with drugs, thoughts of suicide, and the way her family has fallen apart after the death of her ten-year-old brother. When her father takes her with him to Paris on a business trip to ensure she works on her school thesis, Andi discovers a journal written by a girl her age, Alexandrine Paradis, two centuries earlier which has its own tragedies inside. Revolution was an Amazon Best Book of the Year (2010) and honored by Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal; the audiobook version received a 2011 American Library Association Odyssey Honor.

Contents

Plot summary

Andi Alpers is doing the best she can to take care of her mother's deep depression while popping pills for her own. Her father is off living with his pregnant 25-year-old girlfriend, her grades are falling apart, and if she does not turn in her thesis outline after break, she will be kicked out of school. Her best friend Vijay does all he can to help her move on. But she does not care, because she knows it is her fault that her ten-year-old brother was killed by a crazy man named Max, who, trying to stay away from the cops grabbed her brother Truman and held a knife to his neck. Max, feeling threatened by a cop pulling out a gun, jumped into the street and was hit by a delivery van while still holding Andi's brother, killing them both, while she was ditching school with Nick Goode when she really should have been walking her brother to school. The only thing that keeps her alive is her music.

But then her father swoops back into the picture after hearing about her grades. He ships her mother off into a mental hospital to recover and takes Andi to Paris with him to make sure she writes the outline for her thesis. He is there to do a DNA test on the remains of a heart believed to be that of Louis-Charles, the young son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, who was locked away during the French Revolution and believed to have died in the tower at the age of ten. Despite this, rumors of the Lost Dauphin's escape were numerous, as were the people who stepped up to claim the throne at the end of the Revolution.

Andi becomes more interested in this story when she discovers the diary of Alexandrine Paradis, a girl who played with and watched over the prince in her youth and later became a hunted figure nicknamed The Green Man because she continued to set off fireworks all around the city for the prince to see from the tower, so he would not lose hope. As she reads through the diary, Andi almost starts to believe that Alex wants her to finish reading it instead of working on her musical DNA project on Amadé Malherbeau, a famous musician of around the same time who is known for his quirky style.

During her library adventures in research and exploring around Paris, Andi meets Virgil, a taxi driver, and they begin an odd courtship of musical discourse over the phone after she accidentally leaves her iPod with him after making music together at a bar. All the while, the music she plays on her guitar and the talks she and Virgil have keep her hoping for a better future, despite her fights with her father and her emotional distress over memories the diary evokes of her own brother. After her frantic attempt to get up to the top of the Eiffel Tower to commit suicide, Virgil drags her with him down to a closed off part of the catacombs of Paris, where the bones of the thousands of dead were laid to rest centuries ago, to play at a party. When the police come in to break things up and everyone is running everywhere, Andi is suddenly transported to the 18th century and everyone thinks she is Alex.

Her savior is the subject of her thesis, Malherbeau, and her confused babblings are attributed to the crack in the head she took while stumbling in the darkness of the catacombs, until she starts playing her guitar in public at the base of the tower for Louis-Charles to hear and is seriously heckled by those present. Andi carries out the rest of Alex's mission, knowing that the heart in the jar that her father is testing is indeed Louis-Charles, and that he will die in just a few nights. In exchange for his help, she gives Malherbeau her iPod, and he listens to Beethoven play music he has not finished composing yet, as well as music from more recent artists such as Radiohead. Andi returns to her own century wondering if all that had happened was true or some strange effect from her medication and the knock to the head. She also returns with a sense of acceptance of all that has happened.

In the epilogue, Andi is living in France with her mother, who has gotten through her own depression with help. She still has a strained relationship with her father, who is with his new family, but enjoys playing music with Virgil around Paris.

Publication history

The book was published in October, 2010 by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, with a first run of 250,000 copies. [1]

Reception

The Kirkus Reviews gave Revolution a starred review, saying "Donnelly combines compelling historical fiction with a frank contemporary story. Andi is brilliantly realized, complete and complex. The novel is rich with detail, and both the Brooklyn and Paris settings provide important grounding for the haunting and beautifully told story." [2] Publishers Weekly thought "Donnelly's story goes on too long, but packs in worthy stuff. Musicians, especially, will appreciate the thread about the debt rock owes to the classics." [3] School Library Journal called it "stunning" and "A Favorite Book Read in 2010." [4]

Awards and nominations

Related Research Articles

Louis XVII Duke of Normandy / Dauphin of France

Louis XVII was the younger son of King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette. His older brother, Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France, died in June 1789, a little over a month before the start of the French Revolution. At his brother's death he became the new Dauphin, a title he held until 1791, when the new constitution accorded the heir apparent the style of Prince Royal.

Louis Auchincloss American lawyer, novelist and historian (1917–2010)

Louis Stanton Auchincloss was an American lawyer, novelist, historian, and essayist. He is best known as a novelist who parlayed his experiences into books exploring the experiences and psychology of American polite society and old money. His dry, ironic works of fiction continue the tradition of Henry James and Edith Wharton. He wrote his novels initially under the name Andrew Lee, the name of an ancestor who cursed any descendant who drank or smoked.

<i>Children of Paradise</i> 1945 French film directed by Marcel Carné

Les Enfants du Paradis, or Children of Paradise in North America, is a two-part 190-minute romantic drama film by Marcel Carné made under war conditions in 1943, 1944, and early 1945 in both Vichy France and Occupied France. Set in the theatrical world of 1830s Paris, it tells the story of a courtesan and four men — a mime, an actor, a criminal and an aristocrat — who love her in entirely different ways.

<i>The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas</i>

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is a book by Gertrude Stein, written in October and November of 1932 and published in 1933. It employs the form of an autobiography authored by Alice B. Toklas, her life partner. In 1998, Modern Library ranked it as one of the 20 greatest English-language nonfiction books of the 20th century.

Pauline Marie Armande Craven French author

Pauline Marie Armande Aglaé Craven was a French author.

<i>Red Scarf Girl</i>

Red Scarf Girl is a historical memoir written by Ji-li Jiang about her experiences during the Cultural Revolution of China, with a foreword by David Henry Hwang.

<i>Catherine, Called Birdy</i> 1995 novel by Karen Cushman

Catherine, Called Birdy is the first children's novel written by Karen Cushman. It is a historical novel in diary format, set in thirteenth century England. It was published in 1994, and won the Newbery Honor and Golden Kite Award in 1995.

Maria Theresia von Paradis

Maria Theresia von Paradis, was an Austrian musician and composer who lost her sight at an early age, and for whom Mozart may have written his Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat major.

Jennifer Donnelly American writer of young adult fiction

Jennifer Donnelly is an American writer of young adult fiction best known for the historical novel A Northern Light.

Deborah Wiles Childrens book author

Deborah Wiles is a children's book author. Her second novel, Each Little Bird That Sings, was a 2005 National Book Award finalist. Her documentary novel, Revolution, was a 2014 National Book Award finalist. Wiles received the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship in 2004 and the E.B. White Read-Aloud Award in 2005. Her fiction centers on home, family, kinship, and community, and often deals with historical events, social justice issues, and childhood reactions to those events, as well as everyday childhood moments and mysteries, most taken directly from her childhood. She often says, "I take my personal narrative and turn it into story."

<i>Dear Mr. Henshaw</i>

Dear Mr. Henshaw is a juvenile epistolary novel by Beverly Cleary and illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky that was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1984. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association listed the book as one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children".

<i>One False Note</i>

One False Note is the second book in The 39 Clues series. It is written by Gordon Korman, and was published by Scholastic on December 2, 2008. Following the events of The Maze of Bones, the protagonists Amy and Dan Cahill learn about Mozart and travel to Vienna, Austria to search for the second clue in the 39 Clues competition. One False Note entered the Children's Books New York Times Best Seller list at number one on December 21, 2008 and stayed on the list for children's chapter books for 12 weeks.

Élisabeth Alexandrine de Bourbon Mademoiselle de Sens

Élisabeth Alexandrine de Bourbon was a French princess of the blood and a daughter of Monsieur le Duc. Her father was the grandson of the Grand Condé and her mother, Madame la Duchesse was the eldest surviving daughter of Louis XIV of France and his Maîtresse-en-titre, Madame de Montespan.

<i>Mockingbird</i> (Erskine novel) Book by Kathryn Erskine

Mockingbird is a young adult novel by American author Kathryn Erskine about a girl with Asperger's syndrome coping with the loss of her brother. It won the 2010 U.S. National Book Award for Young People's Literature. In 2012 it was awarded the Dolly Gray Children's Literature Award.

The Winnie Years is an ongoing series of children's fiction novels by American author Lauren Myracle. The first entry in the series, Eleven, was published on February 9, 2004 through Dutton Juvenile and focuses on the angst and everyday problems of tween Winnie Perry.

<i>From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess</i> Book by Meg Cabot

From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess is a 2015 children's novel written and illustrated by Meg Cabot and a spinoff of the author's young adult fiction series, The Princess Diaries. The book was released on May 19, 2015 through Feiwel & Friends and follows Olivia, a bi-racial 12-year-old who finds out she is the half-sister of Princess Mia Thermopolis.

<i>The Book of the Damned</i> (Tanith Lee)

The Book of the Damned is a 1988 fantasy/horror novel by World Fantasy Award winner Tanith Lee. Set in Paradys, an alternative version of Paris, it takes place in three novellas set in different periods in the city's dark history.

<i>The Gods Are Thirsty</i> (Tanith Lee)

The Gods Are Thirsty is a 1996 historical novel by World Fantasy Award-winning author Tanith Lee set during the French Revolution. It follows the rise and fall of journalist Camille Desmoulins, who launches the Revolution and is eventually sent to the guillotine.

Kekla Magoon American author (born 1980)

Kekla Magoon is an American author, best known for her NAACP Image Award-nominated young adult novel The Rock and the River, How It Went Down, The Season of Styx Malone, and X. In 2021, she received the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her body of work. Her works also include middle grade novels, short stories, and historical, socio-political, and economy-related non-fiction.

Louisa Wells Aikman, also known as Louisa Susannah Aikman, was a British author and music score collector. She is best known for her book, The journal of a voyage from Charleston, S.C., to London.

References