Far Away

Twelve-year-old CJ, whose mother died when CJ was born and whose father was never in the picture, lives with her aunt Nic-a YouTube celebrity medium who travels the country doing psychic readings and who's trying to break into reality TV. A Hollywood producer seems to be interested; however, CJ soon discovers he's actually trying to unmask her aunt as a charlatan. At first appalled, CJ eventually becomes convinced that Aunt Nic's professed ability to talk to "Spirit," including CJ's own dead mother, is all a fraud. After uncovering another major family secret, CJ, disillusioned and angry, agrees to help the producer humiliate her aunt in spectacular fashion. CJ's budding friendship with sixteen-year-old Jax, whose uncle works on Aunt Nic's crew and who suffers from anxiety, adds some welcome levity (i.e., Jax's bad driving) and no-strings-attached companionship to a story filled with pathos and trust-shaking revelations. "You think it's better to tell people a half-truth they'll actually hear? Or a whole truth they won't?" CJ asks Jax, torn between loyalty to the woman who raised her and anger at Aunt Nic's betrayal. Graff's ruminations on life and death; faith and belief; truth, fiction, and outright lies appear throughout this page-turning story about one family's very specific (if sometimes credulity-stretching) dysfunctions. elissa GershowitzMarch/April 2019 p 81