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Nova Ren Suma Books In Order

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Publication Order of Nova Ren Suma Standalone Novels

Dani Noir (2009)Description / Buy at Amazon
Imaginary Girls (2011)Description / Buy at Amazon
Fade Out (2012)Description / Buy at Amazon
17 & Gone (2013)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Walls Around Us (2015)Description / Buy at Amazon
A Room Away From the Wolves (2018)Description / Buy at Amazon

Publication Order of Anthologies

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys(2015)Description / Buy at Amazon
Toil & Trouble(2018)Description / Buy at Amazon
It's a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories(2019)Description / Buy at Amazon
The House Where Death Lives(2024)Description / Buy at Amazon

Nova Ren Suma is a bestselling American writer of young adult, children, and literature and fiction books best known for her novels The Walls Around Us, Fade Out, Imaginary Girls and 17 & Gone. She holds masters in fine arts from Columbia University and a BA in photography and writing from Antioch College. Suma has a background in book publishing and worked for years as a copy editor and production editor for children’s book publishers including Penguin and HarperCollins. She has also worked as an assistant editor at Marvel Comics.

Nova Suma published her debut novel Dani Noir in 2009. Her adult short stories have been featured in major publications including Orchid, Small Spiral Notebook, Gulf Coast, and Lit Magazine.

The Walls Around Us

The Walls Around Us introduces us to Amber, a prisoner at Aurora Hills Detention Center who hasn’t been free since the age of 13 when she was incarcerated for murder. But one night everything changed, the prison doors were left open, and the girls who were imprisoned decided to taste the freedom that they thought they’d never witness again.

Then there’s Violet, a prominent ballet dancer traveling to New York to attend Juilliard. Her story is connected to that of her best friend Ori and how one afternoon ended with Ori taken to Aurora Detention Center. Violet, Ori, and Amber are all connected each with skeletons in the closets waiting to be revealed.
The Walls Around Us is narrated from the alternating point of view of Violet and Amber. Amber is a convicted killer, and her narrations convince the reader to see past the white and black line to the grey line that exists in between. The number of years she has spent in prison makes her lose her individuality and instead she takes comfort in seeing herself as just a piece of the unit of girls that share a similar fate. On the other hand, Violet is a narcissistic spoiled girl. Rather than feeling saddened over the loss of her friend for three years, she only views her flawed history with Ori as something that might affect her future.

What makes Nova Suma’s novel incredible is the realistic view of the discrepancies in the justice system and the view of juvenile delinquency. The harsh reality of such disparities is evident when one evident when a suspect is acquitted while a multi-racial friend is incarcerated without question.

The author builds up anxiety bit by bit until it becomes a big suffocating wall. Additionally, the readers must also come face to face with the paradox of liking convicted killers and despising successful ballerina. The main characters in this book, Violet and Amber are two worlds apart from each other. Life gives them different opportunities right from the starting point.

In her way, the author vividly addresses the prejudices we all have to deal with in our daily lives. How it is easy to convict a person from a poor broken home regardless of her success and how hard it is to see the faulty of a rich girl. Even though all these issues are hidden from the main story, they all surface on their own without being forced to our faces by the author.

The prisons are filled with unfortunate, underprivileged girls some who are judged for whom they’re and others imprisoned for what they are. It’s also quite fascinating to see the grim side of ballet, an important art form that most of us view as clean and innocent. The ballerinas in this novel are raised to be competitive, mean and self-absorbed, and some take it to better than others.

Imaginary Girls

Beautiful and disturbing, Imaginary Girl is a novel that will your turning pages to see what happens next. As the story kicks off, we meet Chloe who’s persuaded to swim across a reservoir at night by her sister Ruby.

A deadly and forbidden activity and to make matters worse, Chloe would be swimming over a lost town of Olive, which was flooded to make way for the reservoir. The idea of swimming at night over ghost towns with the possibility of scary webbed hands reaching out for your body is both evocative and scary- one that will leave you at the edge of your seat.

If that wasn’t enough for the poor little girl, Chloe comes across a dead body at the end of her swim. Shocked after her finding the dead body, Chloe leaves town temporarily to live with her dad. But upon returning home, she discovers that not everything is as it seems and that something dangerous lurks beneath the charmed world that her sister has created.

Imaginary Girls is a fantastic tale about a compelling but uncomfortable relationship between two sisters. Chloe calls herself an “Echo” of her younger sister and the imbalance in their relationship becomes more troubling.

What seems very trues, especially for any person who has an older sister, is that Ruby doesn’t control those around her with negative behaviour or threats, but instead she captivates them with the persuasiveness of her personality. And unknown to them that it’s the poison that you love that deals the most damage.
Imaginary Girls is a compelling, layered novel with fascinating, haunting and frightening scenarios. It takes a very talented author to craft something as innocent as balloons into a reason to make the reader worried and afraid.

The relationship between the two sisters forms the basis of this story. It’s not the type of relationship that’s neat, that you can say it’s bad or good. It’s a relationship that’s a complicated one that so complex that it makes it impossible for the reader to look at it in objective terms. Is Ruby bad for Chloe or is Chloe better without her? Probably. While Chloe is the main narrator in this novel, it is Ruby who will have the greater part of your attention. She is an interesting character, cruel, caustic at times and magical and the only thing that redeems her characters is her great love for her sister, Chloe.

Book Series In Order » Authors » Nova Ren Suma

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