You Are One of Them

by Elliott Holt

Sarah Zuckerman is a shy, wary ten-year-old in a seemingly placid, upscale neighbourhood of Washington, D.C., in the politically charged 1980s. In Sarah's unhappy home her mother is agoraphobic and obsessed with the possibility of nuclear war; her father has abandoned the family to return to his native England. Sarah's prospects brighten, however, when she is befriended by Jenny Jones, an all-American girl who moves into the house across the street with her picture-perfect family. With Cold War rhetoric reaching a fever pitch in 1982, the girls distract themselves on a rainy afternoon by writing letters to Soviet premier Yuri Andropov, asking for peace. Surprisingly, Jenny's letter receives a response from Andropov. When Jenny accepts the Kremlin's invitation to visit the USSR with her family, she becomes an international media sensation while Sarah is left behind. The girls' icy relationship still has not thawed when Jenny and her parents die tragically in a plane crash in 1985. Ten years later, Sarah is about to graduate from college when she receives a mysterious letter from a woman in Moscow, suggesting that Jenny's death may have been a hoax. She sets off to the former Soviet Union to uncover the truth, but the more she delves into her personal Cold War history, the harder it is to separate facts from propaganda. This is a story about friendship and the shape-shifting nature of truth, the long-lasting sting of abandonment and the measures we take to bring back those we have lost.

• ISBN10: 1594205280
• ISBN13: 9781594205286
• Publish Date: 30 May 2013
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 293
• Language: English

Reviews

[Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews]

You Are One of Them is steady, keeping an even pace, but it wasn't necessarily the thriller I thought it was going to be -- for some reason I was picturing espionage. This is not to say that I was disappointed, not by a long shot.

You Are One of Them was suspenseful, I assumed that Jenny was not all she was perceived to be and Elliot Holt put the puzzle pieces together perfectly. I always smash mine in forcing them into unwanted spaces due to frustration (This doesn't have a smooth edge but I know it's part of the border) Sarah's story was similar to that. After Jenny's death, Sarah is lost but upon learning her friend may still be alive she recreates my idea of a puzzle. I felt she knew it could be impossible but was going to try anyway, because there's a chance that the corner of blue sky connects to an unknown piece.

The descriptions of Moscow, were vivid and felt like I was in the dachas with Sarah. I could taste the vodka and smell the perfume of cigarettes. Elliot Holt depicts a fascinating look at Russia.

There was one thing I was confused about and that was the timetable. Yes, I knew the Jones' died in 1985 and the search for the illusive Jenny is ten years later making it 1995 but I became lost on that journey. Sarah tells the story as a reminiscences (although I don't recall her saying what year) and thus had a tendency to forget what decade we were in until she makes a comment about email being new and the non-existence of cell phones.

Otherwise, I was entranced by You Are One of Them. It is a story of discovery, of growing up and trying to pull yourself out of living the past. Elliot Holt reminds us of Forrest Gump and his box of chocolates. Outstanding.