The Museum of Intangible Things by Wendy Wunder (review)

Friends Hannah and Zoe would risk anything for each other, and they need that kind of friendship to survive their lives. Hannah is forever trying to keep her alcoholic father from destroying himself, while Zoe suffers from bipolar disorder. Hannah is grounded, almost too much so; Zoe courts sensation and adventure. Zoe is also an artist, creating multimedia metaphors in her basement to teach her autistic brother about intangible things such as pride and sloth. One night, however, something happens to Zoe at a party that she won’t talk about, and she retreats to her bed for days until finally Hannah agrees to come with her on a cross-country odyssey. Wunder proves that there’s life in the old road-trip story yet: with Hannah as a winsome narrator subject to sometimes thoughtful, sometimes amusing digressions, the two leave New Jersey to follow a cross-country path only Zoe understands. She claims that she is trying to teach Hannah her own set of intangible things, things that Zoe feels will liberate Hannah from her overblown sense of responsibility, even going so far as ensuring that Hannah hooks up with her crush Danny. As Zoe’s mania becomes more pronounced, however, it becomes clear that she has no intention of returning home. Zoe’s decline tracks alongside Hannah’s progressive epiphanies, and Hannah’s insights are well worth the narrative cost of losing a character to the intangibility she favored. By building an engrossing story with likable characters around a set of poetic, even philosophical, concepts, Wunder invites readers to consider the intangibles in their own lives.