The Candy Darlings (review)

The nameless narrator has been unable to eat candy ever since the death of her mother, since she associates sugar with the glucose drip that fed her mother toward the end. It's ironic, then, that her best friend at her new school is Megan Chalmers, a dramatic and eccentric character whose main love in life is candy, and who becomes the narrator's bold protector against the vicious persecutions of the popular girls. Megan also relishes the telling of bizarre and often shocking stories, stories that may, the narrator eventually realizes, hold clues to Megan's own mysterious life. Walde writes with an intriguing combination of lush texture and cool detachment, and the rich sensual overload of the candy focus is an effective sublimation. In contrast, the book touchingly depicts the narrator's fading family life, where the only intimate contact between father and daughter consists of the narrator's putting her sleepwalking father back to bed. Unfortunately, the Megan plot ends up with more glitz than impact: the sinister attack of the popular girls is overwritten and superfluous, Megan's stories (which are strong in images but narratively weak and unsatisfying) slow down the pace, and the intimations about Megan's real past point to an excessively melodramatic situation but ultimately fall frustratingly short of a clear picture. Readers may still relish the edgy intensity of the story of obsession and consumption, though, as well as the subtle and emotional depiction of a family struggling to survive after loss.