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Zen & Xander Undone

Name: Zen & Xander Undone
Author: Amy Kathleen Ryan
ISBN: 9780547062488

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

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Overview

Zen and Xander are sisters—truly, madly, deeply sisters, and this is their last summer together.

Zen is the "good" girl with a black belt in karate and a newfound penchant for kicking heads. Xander is a wild scientific genius with a self-destructive streak a light-year long. They have three things in common: they’re brown-eyed blondes, they’ve noticed the boy next door has turned into a hottie, and they miss their mom, who died almost a year ago. These sisters are surviving just fine—except Zen keeps getting into fights that are harder and harder to finish, while Xander spirals into a vortex of late-night parties, scary men, and drugs. What’s worse, Xander has scholarships to the most coveted universities in the country, but she’s about to ruin everything. Should Zen keep trying to protect Xander, or finally let her go?

Synopsis

Zen and Xander are sisters—truly, madly, deeply sisters, and this is their last summer together.

These sisters are surviving just fine—except Zen keeps getting into fights that are harder and harder to finish, while Xander spirals into a vortex of late-night parties, scary men, and drugs. What’s worse, Xander has scholarships to the most coveted universities in the country, but she’s about to ruin everything. Should Zen keep trying to protect Xander, or finally let her go?

Children's Literature

Zen and Xander are about as different as two sisters can be and in the aftermath of their mother's death almost a year ago, and both are struggling with their identities. The ever rational and sometimes too stiff younger sister Zen has made it her personal job to look out for Xander who is spiraling more out of control by the day. Throughout the story, the girls are receiving letters written by their mother and sent by an undisclosed relative that challenge them to deal with their loss and grow into the young women that their mother would have wanted them to be. Desperate to figure out who is sending the letters, Xander coerces Zen into an undercover spy operation, which leads to more than they ever bargained for. When the girls discover a missing figurine from their mother's collection and decide to track it down, they expose more about their mother's past then they ever wanted to know and it only adds to the internal struggle that both are dealing with. In this touching story of loss and discovery the sisters are faced with many teen issues such as drinking, drugs, and sexual temptations, but Ryan is able to stay true to her teen voice and the situations are tactfully handled in a way that parents of teenagers would agree with. Reviewer: Jeanna Sciarrotta

About the Author, Amy Kathleen Ryan

Amy Kathleen Ryan earned an M.A. in English literature and graduated from the New School Creative Writing for Children Program. She now lives with her family in Colorado.

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Editorials

From the Publisher

"Zen’s frank narration—full of longing and hard-won insight—draws readers in and won’t let go."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Vivid emotions and unexpected events keep the reader engaged as the characters grow and find a way back to themselves."—Booklist

Children's Literature - Jeanna Sciarrotta

VOYA - Kathleen Beck

When their mother dies of cancer, sisters Zen (Athena) and Xander (Alexandra) find their world unraveling. Their depressed dad descends to the basement; Xander, always a risk taker, spirals into drugs, alcohol, and questionable companions; Zen, the steady one, shocks herself by using her black belt karate skills to deck Xander's menacing date. Unsettlingly, on each important occasion, letters arrive from their mother, written before her death and delivered by an unknown person. Xander talks Zen into stealing their mother's file from her lawyer to learn who the messenger could be. Instead, they find something that rocks their world: a note from an unknown man acknowledging the bequest of a valuable bird figurine from their mother's collection. Why would he write that he "loved her very much"? Could their mom, who seemed so devoted to her family, have had an affair? Impulsively the sisters set out on a road trip to locate and talk to him. What they learn is reassuring and confounding in equal measure. Zen's first-person, present-tense narrative immediately draws in the reader. She cares deeply for her brilliant, if erratic, sibling and makes us care, too. Secondary characters are vividly portrayed, from their grandmother, "the Droning Crone," to Zen's first boyfriend, Paul, who comfortably discusses whether there is a just God. Ryan manages to make their absent mother (with whom Zen has lengthy, internal conversations) a very real, complex character. Literate, believable, funny, and sometimes profound, this book has broad appeal. Reviewer: Kathleen Beck

School Library Journal

Gr 8 Up—Zen and Xander have always been opposites; flashy Xander is brilliant in school, while Zen is more laid back and focused on studying martial arts. When their mother dies, they grieve in different ways. Their father disappears into his misery, Xander gets involved with a crowd that deals in drugs and alcohol, and Zen finds herself resorting to violence as the first solution to dangerous situations. When she gets injured and can no longer teach karate until she has healed in both body and spirit, she struggles with her feelings of helplessness and her inability to get through her sister's ever more hazardous attitude. It only makes things worse when the girls uncover a secret about their mother that has them wondering if they ever really knew her. Zen's narration gives both her actions and her emotions a feeling of immediacy and closeness. Though the ending leaves some questions about Zen's future unanswered, both Xander and the girls' father go through dramatic changes, which Zen chronicles with keen insight. The themes of the negative influences of drugs and alcohol never overpower the story; instead, the focus remains tightly on two young women at a sensitive time in their lives.—Alana Joli Abbott, James Blackstone Memorial Library, Branford, CT

Kirkus Reviews

Before Zen and Xander's mom Marie died, she Made Important Arrangements. The girls receive loving, chatty, spookily appropriate advice-filled letters from her on important dates, and she pre-purchased a perfect prom dress for normally dance-eschewing Zen. Sadly and realistically, no amount of careful planning could prevent Zen, Xander and their dad, James, from losing themselves in grief, so one year after Marie's funeral, James still wallows in the basement, Zen's barely controlled anger finds a dangerous outlet in her black-belt skills and Xander loses herself in drink, drugs and sex. Burning curiosity (tinged with dread) about their mother's long-ago relationship with a graduate-school professor drags the girls out of their funk and pushes them to see Marie as a fully three-dimensional person: loving, brilliant, flawed and forgiven. As their view of Marie develops, so does their understanding of themselves without her, rendering what could be cliched and dull instead touching, urgent and involving. Zen's frank narration-full of longing and hard-won insight-draws readers in and won't let go. (Fiction. YA)