Suja Vaidyanathan Vaidyanathan itibaren Purusotam pur, Odisha 754153, India
This is a story about a teenage girl whose twin sister has died, set in a backdrop of the centennial celebration in Philadelphia. I don't like it much and I don't think it is very good. The author's concept of trying to set the historical scene seems to be to have the equivalent of an 1876 product placement - lots of capitalized brand names bandied about, but no other real sense of the time and place. She probably did a lot of reading research, but this comes out in impossible ways - a devastating fire is described in detail, for instance, but the heroine sees the fire from the top of a tall building, and sees details that are likely in a historical account, but which could not be seen from a high rooftop. The main story has no excitement, nothing unusual - the sister died in an accident, and even that is described only at the end, but there is nothing notable about it. Additionally there are other details that seem unlikely - at the centennial exhibition she talks to a girl who is holding her months old niece, and ends up taking care of the baby for a few hours while the girl goes off to see the fair on her own. This seems totally unlikely, and is unnecessary for the plot - why? The author is supposed to be a writer of fiction for young adults, but from this work it is hard to understand who is bothering to read this stuff.
This is the book I recommend to everyone. It is remarkable what one person can accomplish.
I accidentally read this whole book last night.