Young adult readers will enjoy the relationships between the three main characters and the way they grapple with both ordinary and extraordinary dilemmas. There's a romantic element in the book but it's subtle and avoids the obvious. I like the very natural depiction of New Zealand's multicultural society, in which Maori Keri, Pacific Islander Sione and pakeha Janna are each subject to the expectations of their particular family and culture. Keri, Janna and Sione are interesting, wel-rounded characters (the story is mainly Keri's but chapters aternate between the three points of view.) Karen Healey is expert at capturing the voice of each of her young protagonists. It's a supernatural thriller, based on the efforts of a trio of teenagers to prove that their elder brothers' deaths were not suicide, but murders by a serial killer. The Shattering is a less substantial novel. I loved Karen Healey's Guardian of the Dead for its strong female protagonist, its use of Maori mythology and its authentic New Zealand setting.
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