Mathilda Savitch is entertaining-- both as a main character and as a novel. Mathilda is a young teenager (we can assume) who is trying to deal with the year-old violent death of her older and much admired sister. Mathilda is obviously grieving, and voices this, but her parents seem utterly paralyzed by their grief and, because of that, are unable to provide Mathilda with the love and comfort she needs. Mathilda decides the only way to make them snap out of their zombie-like state is to be truly bad; she wants to shock them into waking up. She hacks into her sister's email account and sends their mother emails from Helene; she stalks Helene's old boyfriends, trying to piece together the life her sister left behind; she pinches her faithful dog, seeing if he's willing to abandon her as well. However, while Mathilda desires to be "bad," what she REALLY wants is to get her family back.
This novel wasn't always an easy one to read; Mathilda is prickly, and at times even a little creepy... her interactions with her best friend and the boy next door both made me uncomfortable sometimes, even though her emotions and actions obviously stemmed from grief and loneliness. She;s aggressive, frustrated, and angry. However, she is also irresistible because she loves so fiercely and will do anything to get her family back.
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