The uninvited / Tim Wynne-Jones.

Title :

The uninvited

Author:

Wynne-Jones, Tim.

Format:

Books

Summary:

After a disturbing freshman year at New York University, Mimi is happy to get away to her father's remote Canadian cottage only to discover a stranger living there who has never heard of her or her father and who is convinced that Mimi is responsible for leaving sinister tokens around the property.

Language:

English

Audience:

HL 630 Lexile.

ISBN - ISSN:

9780763639846

0763639842

Physical Description:

351 pages ; 22 cm

Subject:

Canada -- Fiction.

Canada -- Juvenile fiction.

Detective and mystery stories.

Young adult fiction.

Fiction.

First Title value, for Searching:

The uninvited / Tim Wynne-Jones.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Library	Audience	Home Location	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Central	Teen/Young Adult	Open Stacks Fiction	Open Stacks Teen Book	WYNNE	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Kendall	Teen/Young Adult	Fiction	Teen Book	WYNNE	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Oak Forest	Teen/Young Adult	Fiction	Teen Book	WYNNE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Who is the uninvited? This twisty page-turner from a master of suspense plumbs the unsettling goings-on at a picture-perfect woodland cottage.

Mimi Shapiro had a disturbing freshman year at NYU, thanks to a foolish affair with a professor who still haunts her caller ID. So when her artist father, Marc, offers the use of his remote Canadian cottage, she's glad to hop in her Mini Cooper and drive up north. The house is fairy-tale quaint, and the key is hidden right where her dad said it would be, so she's shocked to find someone already living there -- Jay, a young musician, who is equally startled to meet Mimi and immediately accuses her of leaving strange and threatening tokens inside: a dead bird, a snakeskin, a cricket sound track embedded in his latest composition. But Mimi has just arrived, so who is responsible? And more alarmingly, what does the intruder want? Part gripping thriller, part family drama, this fast-paced novel plays out in alternating viewpoints, in a pastoral setting that is evocative and eerie -- a mysterious character in its own right.

Author Notes

Tim Wynne-Jones is an award-winning writer of numerous young adult novels. He lives in Perth, Ontario.

Reviews (5)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Wynne-Jones (Rex Zero, King of Nothing) creates a tale of twisted family ties that begins with a college coed running from an affair turned sour. Wanting to get as far away as possible from NYU-and the professor who is stalking her-Mimi heads to Canada to stay at her artist father's long-abandoned country cottage. When she arrives, she is startled to find the house occupied by a stranger, Jackson (Jay) Page, a half-brother she didn't know existed. After the siblings agree to temporarily share living quarters, more surprises are in store as personal items go missing and Mimi has the eerie sensation of being watched. In chapters focusing on a local and his mother, readers get hints about the big picture, but suspense remains high as the book races to its climax. The characters have strong voices and personalities-their realness, coupled with the idyllic setting, contrasts starkly (and thrillingly) with the story's dark side. If the number of letches and unbalanced individuals that Mimi attracts appears extreme, readers will probably be too caught up in the action to care. Ages 14-up. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Horn Book Review

(High School) Mimi Shapiro, having finished her freshman year at NYU (including a disastrous affair with her professor), has fled to her father's cottage in the Canadian wilderness for some peace of mind, but when she arrives, she finds the cottage already inhabited by a young man. The two soon discover that they are half-siblings, and while their initial confrontation yields to a strong friendship, a disturbing problem remains: somebody has been watching the house and repeatedly breaking in, taking small things at first and then more expensive items. The stalker has his own share of problems-namely an unstable mother and her criminal boyfriend-but the possibility of multiple intruders gradually unfolds, complicating the plot. For Mimi, the climactic confrontation furthers a keener appreciation of her family-"this most unlikely of families." Wynne-Jones has consistently raised the bar for literary thrillers: The Boy in the Burning House (rev. 11/01) and A Thief in the House of Memory (rev. 5/05) showcased his talents for suspenseful plotting, nuanced characterization, atmospheric sense of place, and humanistic themes; but The Uninvited may be the best one yet. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

After a stormy affair with a professor, NYU student Mimi Shapiro heads to a remote Canadian farmhouse owned by her father, Marc, a famous painter. On arrival in the idyllic riverside setting, though, she finds Jay, a 22-year-old musician, already ensconced in the house. Jay, she discovers, is her half-brother, and he welcomes her into his comfortable life with his mother and her lesbian partner. Readers learn long before the newfound siblings, however, that Marc fathered another child: Cramer, a twentysomething loner who supports his mentally unstable mother. Is he the sole intruder who stalks and then breaks into the river house? The distance between what readers and characters know creates the story's central coil of tension, and Wynne-Jones adds extra measures of creepiness in teen-movie scenes of vulnerable Mimi, alone and threatened in the house, and in the flashes of sexual attraction that the half-siblings share. The mystery's violent conclusion will shock many, but it's Wynne-Jones' atmospheric prose and sophisticated exploration of elemental coming-of-age themes that will involve readers most.--Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2009 Booklist

School Library Journal Review

Gr 9 Up-Mimi Shapiro, film studies major at NYU, leaves her predatory professor lover and escapes to a remote Canadian cottage that belongs to her father, Marc Soto, a prominent artist who walked out on Mimi and her mom years before. She finds the cottage occupied by Jay Page, a music student who is also Marc's progeny by a local woman. Despite knowing nothing of one another, the half-siblings forge a quick bond and investigate a series of odd occurrences at the cottage. They discover a hidey-hole under a trapdoor in the floor with an escape tunnel, raising alarm that escalates after a break-in. The story unfolds in alternating viewpoints between Mimi and local loner Cramer Lee, yet another secret Marc Soto offspring, who lives nearby with his mentally unstable artist mother. Cramer supports her by working two jobs and spends his spare time working out with weights and spying on Jay and Mimi. Despite the thriller premise, the tension tends to be tepid, bogged down by overly picturesque descriptions of surroundings, clothing, and cuisine. Cramer's character is well developed and sympathetic in his pathological shyness and twisted maternal relationship. City girl Mimi enthusiastically takes on rural life and travel by kayak, growing past self-absorption, but Wynne-Jones devotes more space to her possessions than her qualities. Jay remains peculiarly flat for a passionate musician. The complications and improbability of suddenly becoming family thrust upon the three are largely untapped.-Joyce Adams Burner, National Archives at Kansas City, MO (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Review

A selfish New York painter fathered three children by different mothers in his reckless youth. Now young adults, the spoiled college coed, the introspective classical composer and the disenfranchised factory worker discover each other when each of them has cause to visit their father's old studio in rural Canada. As their lives begin to intersect, one of them unknowingly introduces a murderous presence into their midst, an action that will have tragic consequences for them all. While the cover and title of Wynne-Jones's latest suggests a supernatural mystery, what emerges from the mist is more suspenseful family drama than haunted-house tale. The mystery of how the trio is linked would have been more satisfying had the author not spelled out their connections so plainly. Still, the three separate viewpoints he incorporates are compelling, the climax is truly heart-pounding and the beautifully evoked bucolic setting comes from behind to play a starring role. Older teen readers looking for something akin to Celia Rees's sensual, brooding The Wish House (2005) will not be disappointed. (Mystery. 14 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Excerpts

CHAPTER ONE MIMI MISSED HER TURN and screeched to a stop. "Shit!" She checked the map on the seat beside her, backed up, and squinted through her own dust at the signpost. Uppe V lenti e Rd. "Close enough." A deep-throated bark seized her attention. A gargantuan dog was tearing toward her from the dilapidated house on the corner. "Shit!" The animal bounced up and down at her door, brindle and with far too many yellow teeth. She threw the Mini Cooper into reverse again and slewed to the left, almost hitting the ugly mutt. "Take that, Hellhound!" Then she thrust the stick shift forward and left the paved road, sending out a rooster tail of gravel. Undaunted, the dog stayed on her tail - stayed with her for a hundred yards or so - then finally fell behind, his territory no longer in danger. Mimi took a deep breath and patted the leather-upholstered steering wheel. "Ms. Cooper, we are now officially not in Kansas," she said. And the Mini's horn beeped twice in reply. The little car was red with a black top, and Mimi had red shades and black hair. She wore a red T-back sports bra and black low-rise capris, as if the car were an accessory. Well, it was small, after all. Like Mimi - small and powerful. Gripping the wheel tightly in her left hand, she picked up her digital camcorder from the passenger seat and held it at arm's length, aimed at her face. "News update," she said. "This is Mimi Shapiro reporting from Nowhere!" She swiveled the wine-red JVC HDD around to take in the countryside: the empty dirt road stretching out before her, the overgrown borders and broken-down fences, the unkempt and empty fields, the desolate forest beyond them. "Not a Starbucks in sight," she said, returning the camcorder to her face. "What do you think, Chet? Have we actually entered the Land that Time Forgot?" "Well, Mimi," she replied in a low and amiable TV sidekick kind of voice. "you'd think the officials at the border might have warned us about this, wouldn't you? 'Welcome to Canada. Sorry we're out right now.'" She put the camcorder down in order to negotiate a long S turn, and there up ahead - just to prove her wrong - two huge mud-stained trucks were pulled over onto the shoulder, nose to nose. Farmer One leaned on the driver's side door of Farmer Two. With both hands on the wheel, Mimi swerved around them, glad to be driv ing such a small and responsive vehicle. Both men wore ball caps, which they tipped as she flew by. They took her all in with their shaded eyes, and she wished she hadn't taken her shirt off back at the rest stop on 401. "Oh, Ms. Cooper," she muttered. "What have we gotten ourselves into?" She had left New York City yesterday morning and stayed overnight just outside Albany. Then bright and early this morning - way earlier than she was used to - she had set her compass due north, and here she was, though with every passing mile she wondered if maybe Marc had been lying to her. He was hardly the world's most reliable father. "Almost there," she told herself, to calm her misgivings. She glanced into her rearview mirror, half expecting Clem and Jed to be on her tail. She imagined them hopping into their trucks to follow the half-naked girl in the toy car. Yee-haw! But the road was empty behind her. She crested a hill. There was a house ahead, though it was hard to tell if anyone still lived in it. She whooshed by the driveway, where an old woman with an even older dog was collecting the mail from her mailbox. The woman glanced Mimi's way, clutching a letter to her flat chest, glaring at the girl as she flew by. She was wearing a ball cap, too. "Got to get me one of those," said Mimi. Excerpted from The Uninvited by Tim Wynne-Jones All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.