2003 Book Sense Book of the Year Award Finalists -- Adult Fiction

This year's finalists for the Book Sense Book of the Year Award in the adult fiction category include two debut novels and stories that take place in settings as diverse as the turbulent Pacific Ocean and a placid, custom-made heaven. Plots weave through backdrops of the Civil Rights Act, acts of world war, and acts of depravity. In addition to their excellence, these five novels share youthful protagonists, all under the age of 20. The enormous range of their experiences make each book uniquely compelling.

The Book Sense Book of the Year Awards will be announced at the Celebration of Bookselling, on Friday, May 30, during this year's BookExpo America, at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California.

Award ballots will be sent to all ABA bookstore members at the end of March. The tabulation of votes will be handled by KPMG, and the results will be kept secret until the May 30 event.

ATONEMENT, Ian McEwan (Nan Talese/Doubleday)
Atonement was recently named the winner of the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. The story opens in an upper-middle-class English country home in 1935, where the lives of half a dozen people are irrevocably changed by a domestic crisis and its aftermath. The story is bracketed by 13-year-old Briony Tallis, who exploits her flair for the dramatic throughout her life. Atonement explores the challenge and power of both the writer and the reader.

From the Book Sense 76 Recommendation:
"McEwan weaves an absorbing tale that starts one afternoon in 1935 and unfolds for years to come, profoundly altering the lives of those involved. Readers are entrapped in a tale that commands attention from start to finish. A beautifully written and masterfully crafted tale of growing up, finding love, and the dangers of a runaway imagination." -- Kyle Beachy, Verbatim Booksellers, Vail, Colorado

THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE, Michel Faber (Harcourt)
Based on 20 years of research, Faber's second novel reveals the intricacies of Victorian London in all its sordid glory. Although the relationship of Sugar, a young prostitute, and her troubled patron, perfume magnate William Rackham, forms the central structure of the book, myriad characters, major and minor, are given careful, detailed treatment. Throughout its 800-plus pages, Faber maintains a rapid pace in this tale of twisted love and ambition.

From the Book Sense 76 Recommendation:
"Faber presents us with a sprawling Victorian novel, told with all the devices and designs to which we've become accustomed, yet turning the genre on its ear. Where Dickens turned a blind or euphemistic eye, Faber shares every shocking detail of 1800s London. The trials of the wealthy Rackham family make for an unforgettable story, told with uncanny truth and humanity." --Drew Phillips, Warwick's, La Jolla, California

LIFE OF PI, Yann Martel (Harcourt)
Pi (nee Piscine) Patel, 16-year-old zookeeper's son, reared in Pondicherry, India, takes off for a move to Canada with his extended family. Shipwrecked, Pi is adrift in the Pacific Ocean on a 26-foot lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. No Huck Finn-type pranks here, Pi eventually drifts for 227 days through the shark-infested waters with his sole surviving companion, Parker. The journey tests all of Pi's multiple faiths, and he recalls, "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion."

From the Book Sense 76 Recommendation
"Martel weaves a brilliant tale that is part adventure story and part spiritual quest. The part of the book that relates how Pi becomes a practicing Hindu/Moslem/Christian is worth the price of the book, and the portion that deals with Pi and a Bengal tiger adrift on the ocean in a lifeboat together is everything you might imagine and more." --Stephen Grutzmacher, Passtimes Books, Sister Bay, Wisconsin

THE LOVELY BONES, Alice Sebold (Little, Brown)
In this first novel, Sebold offers a brazenly paradoxical situation: 14-year-old Susie must gain a lifetime of wisdom and maturity after her horrific death. As narrator, Susie is a witness to the continuing lives of her family and slowly learns her way around heaven, which is customized for each entrant. Susie's heaven resembles the landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams," where "there were no teachers.... We never had to go inside except for art class.... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue."

From the Book Sense 76 Recommendation:
"This remarkable first novel is narrated by Susie, a 14-year-old murder victim who watches from heaven as her family and friends struggle with their grief, pain, and desperation to understand. What could be maudlin is instead a spirited, devastating, and ultimately hopeful book about love and healing. Susie will enter your heart and you will be enriched by her." --Tripp Ryder, Carleton College Bookstore, Northfield, MN

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES, Sue Monk Kidd (Viking)
Award-winning nonfiction writer and memoirist Kidd presents a quest for spiritual and family fulfillment disguised initially as the desperate, ill-conceived 1964 road trip of Lily Owen, motherless 14-year-old, and Rosaleen, a black longtime servant to the unhappy Owen household. Both are on the lam from the authorities in Sylvan, South Carolina, and from T. Ray Owen, Lily's abusive father. Unknown forces impel them to the town of Tiburon and the home of Black Madonna Honey. The Secret Life of Bees was nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction in England.

From the Book Sense 76 Recommendation:
"Kidd creates a narrator whom the reader will grow to love. White, 14, and a runaway, Lily finds the true meaning of family in a very unusual place: the home of three black sisters who raise bees. Beautifully written, this is a page-turner." --Kathy Westover, The Bookworm, Edwards, Colorado

All current ABA member bookstores can vote for the Book Sense Book of the Year. The remaining four finalists in each category will be awarded the title of Book Sense Honor Book. All nominated authors and illustrators will be invited to attend the award ceremonies and the Book Sense 76 Lunch, also to be held on Friday, May 30, at BEA.

Ballots will be mailed to all ABA bookstore members at the end of March and must be returned by April 30, 2003. The ballot will also be available online. Watch for details in upcoming issues of BTW.

Next week, BTW will feature the Adult Nonfiction nominees.