If girls knew what they could do, imagine what they might in The Possible by Tara Alterbrando
United By Pop received a free copy of The Possible in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are our own.
Title: The Possible
Author: Tara Alterbrando
Purchase: Available in the UK and the US
Overall rating: 4.5/5
Great for: Fans of E. Lockhart, Robin Wasserman, and Moïra Fowley-Doyle
Themes: Young adult, coming-of-age, contemporary, thriller, mystery and supernatural
Review: “There are moments when life becomes this palpable thing. Events themselves can feel physical in the way they call out your connection to something bigger – the world? Some kind of actual life force that you can feel. Like holding a heartbeat in your hands.”
Kaylee is pretty much your average teen girl. Sure, she’s adopted but apart from that, there is nothing unusual about her, right? Well apart from the fact that her birth mother was a famous telekinetic teen and murdered her younger brother when she was just four years old, that is.
But what if her mother’s abilities are hereditary? What if the series of coincidences that are dispersed through her life, start to mean something more when they are aligned altogether? What if she is the link to discerning the mystery of faith over proof?
For if girls knew what they could do, imagine what they might?
The alternative format of this novel meant that segments were relayed to the reader in regular text format whilst other parts included reproductions of handwriting, documents, and personal messages. This meant that there was always something to engage the eye and Tara Alterbrando has ensured this to be as entertaining in format as it was in subject matter.
Kaylee’s stilted knowledge of the truth concerning her heritage meant that the reader, too, was only given a minimal insight. The slow dispersal of information culminated in the formation of wild theories and rife conspiracies formed in both the character’s and the reader’s minds during this book-long strive for truth.
This continual speculation meant that whether this was a supernatural or straight-up thriller remained to be revealed. And even after the book’s close, the reader can never be sure where the author’s final decision concerning that, lay.
I adore novels that seem to be about one particular thing but are instead concerned with a wider social topic. This is exactly what Tara Alterbrando does here. The subject of Kaylee’s mother’s telekinesis invites the reader to explore society’s treatment of the others and the witch-hunt that dogs females who dare to be anything other than the image of the accepted.
Both Kaylee and her mother, during their teen years, struggled to be accepted and both decided to shun others’ expectations in favour of forming their own path, whether for right or for wrong. As well as this being an insight into the trials of one female’s ancestry, this is also a chronicle of growing self-identity and a commentary of a society that would see it morphed and tamed.
Did you love THE LEAVING? Check out this excerpt of @TaraAltebrando's latest book, THE POSSIBLE! https://t.co/oiVKFcLkPh
— BloomsburyUS Kids/YA (@bloomsburykids) July 22, 2017
