The Byways

March 15, 2023
A high schooler crosses over into a new world in Pascual's YA fantasy novel. CeeCee Harper is no stranger to unsympathetic teachers, bullies who's think she's weird, and other hardships that come with being a high school student with sensory processing disorder and ADHD. She also has impulse-control issues that make her temper rise at inconvenient times, especially when she's frustrated. Her only ally is her best friend, Trudy, but CeeCee wonders if she really understands her. After a particularly difficult day, an angry CeeCee makes the wrong choice and shoplifts a rabbit keychain from a local store in her unnamed city; the fear and regret that follow lead her to flee down a side alley off a main street, and that's how she ends up crossing into "the byways"--a parallel realm where magical humanoids live under the rule of the Queen and her enforcers. CeeCee befriends part-cat/part-boy Jesse, who guides her through the absurd world of the byways as she tries to find her way back home. Pascual's take on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) results in a smart, delightful novel that features a pinch of danger, a spoonful of political unrest, and a dash of romance (found in the most unexpected way). CeeCee's coming-of-age story is one about choices, about grappling with one identity, and about finding a place to belong. Throughout, the author engagingly negotiates how the world views CeeCee, and how she views herself, with fittingly captivating prose: "She thought about cats and people and how much she would like another cup of coffee about now. She thought about home and the strangeness of perspective....Her mind was scattered, unfocused, too fast, and yet everything was clearer than she had felt in a long time." A fun, charming, and modern twist on an old classic.

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