Brilliant (review)

Lucky (BCCB 6/08) featured young Phoebe Avery, Gorgeous (BCCB 6/09) her older sister Allison; now the focus is on oldest sister Quinn. The solid and reliable daughter, Quinn rolls with the punches as her family's life begins to disintegrate after her mother gets fired from her lucrative job as hedge-fund manager, but she's beginning to question her eternally accepting role. Vail has done a superb job of moving through the trajectory of the connecting backstory even as she gives each Avery girl full center-stage attention. The new indications that the girls' mother may have acted improperly, even illegally, as well as unluckily have particularly catalytic implications here, as Quinn moves from total loyalty to reexamination of everything she's always taken as true. This isn't so much an unmasking of parental treachery, though, as a particularly dramatic impetus for Quinn's age-appropriate and credibly conveyed move from childish credulity to a more nuanced adult perception, which results in both honest appreciation of familial strength and understanding of its weaknesses. The book also offers some neat craftsmanship in its external characterizations of Phoebe and Allison, whom readers have seen from the inside in previous titles, with the triangulated portrayals giving a fuller picture than either point of view on its own. Readers who pick this title up will definitely want to backtrack to the earlier titles to fill in the picture, and those who've heard Phoebe's and Allison's takes won't want to miss Quinn's.