Frannie in Pieces

What does you in—brain or heart?

Frannie asks herself this question when, a week before she turns fifteen, her dad dies, leaving her suddenly deprived of the only human being on planet Earth she feels understands her. Frannie struggles to make sense of a world that no longer seems safe. She discovers an elegant wooden box with an inscription: Frances Anne 1000. Inside, Frannie finds one thousand hand-carved and -painted puzzle pieces. She wonders if her father had a premonition of his death and finished her birthday present early. Feeling broken into pieces herself, Frannie slowly puts the puzzle together. But as she works, something remarkable begins to happen: She is catapulted into a foreign landscape suspended in time where she can discover her father as he was B.F.—before Frannie.

What does you in--brain or heart?

Frannie asks herself this question when, a week before she turns fifteen, her dad dies, leaving her suddenly deprived of the only human being on planet Earth she feels understands her. Frannie struggles to make sense of a world that no longer seems safe, a world in which one moment can turn things so thoroughly for the worse. She discovers an elegant wooden box with an inscription: Frances Anne 1000. Inside, Frannie finds one thousand hand-painted and -carved puzzle pieces. She wonders if her father had a premonition of his death and finished her birthday present early. Feeling broken into pieces herself, Frannie slowly puts the puzzle together, bit by bit. But as she works, something remarkable begins to happen: She is catapulted into an ancient foreign landscape, a place suspended in time where she can discover her father as he was B.F.--before Frannie.

Delia Ephron makes you laugh and makes you cry--often at the same time!

Publishers Weekly

When 15-year-old Frannie stumbles upon an elaborately carved box bearing her name as she is sorting through her late father's art studio, she assumes she has found a birthday present that he made for her before his recent, untimely death. Inside she finds a handmade, 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle; assembling it distracts Frannie from her grief and her growing obsession with death. But sometimes, usually when she is exhausted, the connected puzzle pieces seem to pull her inside them and transport her to a foreign place where she sometimes glimpses or even talks with a younger version of her father. In deftly conjuring up the magical element of this otherwise realistic novel, Ephron (How to Eat Like a Child) explores themes about "puzzling" relationships, the process of mourning (which leaves Frannie "in pieces") and seeing the larger picture. Frannie, an artist like her father and at odds with her more conventional mother and stepfather, feels too much pain to connect with anyone else, including her best friend. Whether or not Frannie's journeys into the jigsaw puzzle are figments of her imagination (plenty of evidence suggests they are not), her brief visits to its world have a profound psychological effect, answering some of her questions about love, art and life. Truths about Frannie's long-divorced parents emerge suddenly in a gratifying climax that forces Frannie, and readers, to reassemble her picture of her family and herself. With this imaginative and insightful first YA novel, Ephron, co-screenwriter for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, should easily capture a new audience. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)

Delia Ephron is a critically acclaimed novelist and screenwriter. Her most recent book, Frannie in Pieces, received four starred reviews, was a Book Sense Pick, and was named to the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age list. She is also the author of Big City Eyes, Hanging Up, and How to Eat Like a Child. Her screenwriting credits include The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, You've Got Mail, Bewitched, Hanging Up, and Michael. She lives in New York City with her husband and their dog, Honey Pansy Cornflower Bernice Mambo Kass.