Chime by Frannie Billingsley

Chime by Franny Billingsley

Review of Chime

Title: Chime

Book length 369 pages

Author: Franny Billingsley
Content: I recommend YA audiences 14 and up (a few scary creatures)

“a poem doesn’t come out and tell you what it has to say. I circles back on itself, eating its own tail and making you guess what it means.”

In the book Chime, the main character Briony Larkin makes this statement about poetry. It also is a good description of twists and turns in this book. This book was a pleasant surprise. I loved the interesting, creepy, and fanciful setting which is early 20th century England in a magical swamp complete with some nefarious swamp creatures. We have Briony Larkin who throughly hates herself because she believes she is a witch who has caused several sad events. We also have Briony's "bad boy" love interest, Eldrict. And then, we have Rose who is Briony's autistic identical twin sister. There are some intriguing mysteries and twists that are quite fun to ponder while reading. Briony's uses interesting and colorful language that could only be used by a smart and clever young woman who has lived her whole life in this small world. Briony's choice of words made me smile several times.

In this story, which is told from Briony's point of view, children in the area are dying from "swamp cough." This cough is caused by a swamp entity who is angered by plans and efforts to drain and destroy the swamp. Unfortunately, Briony's twin sister has caught swamp cough. Therefore, Briony has to come up with a way to bargain with a swamp creature to save her sister and not expose herself as a witch. Because in this book, witches (based on shaky evidence) are hung. But, that is only part of the story. There are questions like ,"how did her step-mother actually die?" and "what type of person was her step-mother?" "what is going on with her father?" and "what is Rose talking about?"  “Is it a good idea to drain a swamp?” Have fun reading this book, I know I did!