La mia perplessità maggiore prima di leggere After Zero riguardava il modo in cui l’elemento magico sarebbe entrato a far parte della storia: il mio timore riguardava la possibilità che il mutismo selettivo della protagonista diventasse improvvisamente un vantaggio chiave, spazzando via qualunque difficoltà avesse avuto in famiglia o a scuola. È un espediente letterario che non mi piace: mi sembra il pretesto per inserire una disabilità giusto il tempo per suscitare simpatia a buon mercato nellǝ lettorǝ, per poi evitarsi di scrivere di scrivere di un personaggio disabile, trasformandolo magicamente (in senso letterale) in abile.

Per fortuna i miei timori si sono rivelati infondati: anzi, accade l’esatto opposto e l’elemento magico viene utilizzato per far capire cosa significa avere il mutismo selettivo anche a unǝ lettorǝ come me, che a malapena ne conosce la definizione (e, per la cronaca, il mutismo selettivo è un disturbo d’ansia sociale che impedisce di parlare in alcune circostanze).

Ovviamente non sono in grado di dirvi se sia una buona rappresentazione di una persona con mutismo selettivo, ma ho letto recensioni di molte persone entusiaste che si sono riconosciute in Elise, quindi penso che Collins abbia fatto un ottimo lavoro. Anche perché After Zero non è un libro deprimente: pur non lesinando sulle difficoltà, sia in famiglia, sia a scuola (ci sono delle scene di bullismo davvero tremente, fate attenzione se per voi è un tema sensibile), ci sono tutta una serie di elementi positivi nella sua vita e non finirete il libro con la sensazione che il mutismo selettivo sia una condanna a una vita scolastica e familiare disastrata.

Infine, non tutto il romanzo ruota intorno al disturbo di Elise, ma piuttosto al silenzio. Infatti, Elisa scoprirà che sua madre le nasconde un segreto e questa informazione taciuta sarà fonte di infelicità e incompresione: l’ho trovato un parallelo letterario molto interessante, perché, se è vero che non è giusto forzare una persona con mutismo selettivo a parlare, è altrettanto importante non arrendersi al silenzio, che potrebbe essere rassicurante nell’immediato, ma portare sofferenze più grandi nel futuro. ( )

On the whole, I appreciate what is going on in this book -- the topic, selective mutism, is not one I've seen handled before, and Collins is deft in showing how Elise starts making the choices she does and the downhill slide when those choices start to pile up. There's a note from the author that indicates she's writing from an own voices perspective, which no doubt adds to her sensitive storytelling.

I also like the framing within the Grimm's fairy tale, because it gives the plotline an urgency that works in its favor.

I have a harder time with the neglectful relationship between Elise and her mother and how it is miraculously resolved at the end of the book -- that healing felt rushed and unbelievable, although I appreciate heartily that both characters end up getting direct mental health support.

I feel like this book doesn't quite reach the stirring empathy of Out of My Mind or Rain Reign or Counting by Sevens, but that kids who enjoyed those books may enjoy this one as well.

Advanced reader's copy provided by Edelweiss ( )

Content warnings for this book: mental illness, anxiety, grief, child death.

Up until about 7 months ago, 12-year-old Elise was homeschooled. However, she was always jealous of her friend Mel's stories about school, so she managed to get her mom to enroll her in public school. Unfortunately, the experience didn't go quite the way she'd hoped. Elise now spends each day tallying every word she speaks. Some days her tally is at one or two, but the best days are when she's at zero. She appreciates teachers who don't require her to participate in discussions - it's one of the reasons why she likes Miss Looping's English class, where all she's ever expected to do is write.

It's not that she doesn't ever speak. She talks a little, at home. But she understands that even her home life isn't quite the same as other people's. Her mother keeps secrets from her and doesn't seem to care about her. Elise didn't even know what birthdays were until her friend Mel's 7th birthday. As Elise learns more about her mother and her own past, she struggles to figure out what to do when every word she says has the potential to make things worse.

This is one of my old ARCs that I got at a conference and then never read. It turned out to be an unexpected gem.

I'd likely have never picked this up on my own. I don't read a lot of Middle Grade fiction, and when I do, it's normally fantasy, sci-fi, mysteries, or light and fluffy contemporaries. I generally avoid serious Middle Grade realistic fiction like the plague.

In the author's note at the end, Collins wrote that this book was based both on the Brothers Grimm tale "The Twelve Brothers" (I didn't know it and looked it up - very loosely based) and on her own adolescent experience with low-profile selective mutism. I think I'd heard of selective mutism before, but never in much depth. In Elise's case, she could speak at home but experienced great anxiety about speaking at school and elsewhere, and her selective mutism eventually began to transition to complete silence (progressive mutism).

I've struggled with anxiety for most of my life - not Elise's specific kind of anxiety (although aspects of her story prompted me to recall incidents in my childhood that I'd forgotten), but the feelings are very similar even if the details differ. I could definitely relate to the way Elise discovered that her efforts to deal with her fears had further trapped her, and to her difficulty communicating what was going on with her. Although I practically flew through this book, it was a hard read at times and had me in tears by the end.

I haven't read many books that have dealt with anxiety that I could relate to to some degree, but this is one I'd recommend. I think it could be helpful for a child who's dealing with it but doesn't have the words to explain it, and for adults who, like me, may not know much about selective mutism and might not realize that there's maybe more going on with that "shy" child in their life. Things turn out well for Elise in the end - it disappointed me a little that none of the help she later received was shown on-page, but I doubt there'd have been a good way to do that without making things seem too quick and easy, so maybe that's for the best. Her mother (also dealing with mental illness, but whose story was more in the background) sought treatment for herself as well, so it was a positive and hopeful ending all around.

The one thing that didn't really work for me: Beady. He was a stuffed raven owned by one of Elise's teachers, and a potential fantasy element in a book that could otherwise be considered purely realistic fiction. There were indications that he might have been coming alive and helping Elise out at crucial moments. Or the bird incidents were coincidences, and the Beady stuff was just a mystery that Elise's teacher helped encourage. It wasn't terrible, but it blurred the line between fantasy and reality a little more than I'd have liked, especially considering how one other incident that blended realism and fantasy turned out.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )

After Zero is a story of loneliness, friendship, and growing up. Based around a 12 year old, a fantastical event in forest builds up to 13th birthday. It has a good dose of reader anticipation. Why doesn't Else talk at school? Why is mom estranged from family? Hallucinations? This book will have you thinking. ( )