Rating: 4 1/2 stars (Spotlight Review)

All too often when we attempt to control the outcome of events, things are only made worse in the end. For Aslaug Dattir, raised in isolation in Maine by her severe and rational mother Maren, real life begins in the wake of unexpected and tragic events. When Aslaug is forced into the real world she learns that people are not always who the say they are and honesty is a rare thing, even among family.

The book opens in 1987 with a then-pregnant Maren telling her sister that she has had no lovers and thus cannot explain her pregnancy. Aslaug has been raised to believe that she has no father. She has never been given his name and indeed has been told quite plainly that she does not have a father. The book then moves to a courtroom in 2007 where Aslaug is on trial and being questioned about her paternity. As will be made evident, Aslaug's conception lies at the heart of everything.

The novel soon shifts back to 2003 and the start of the events that would lead to the 2007 trial. From early childhood Aslaug has been raised in the small house at the edge of the woods with only her mother for company. She is home schooled and only goes into town occasionally with Maren for supplies. Maren teaches her a wide-range of foreign languages, instructs her in numerous areas of theology, and gives her an exhaustive education in botany and yet she also marks out passages in many of the books required by the State for home schooling. This piecemeal education will leave Aslaug at loose ends when she is forced to seek refuge with the family that she didn't know she had. The story of her supposed "virgin-birth" haunts her like a wraith and becomes the poison that infects everything around her.

Madapple is Meldrum's debut novel and it's quite a promising start. The "virgin-birth" story is integral to the plot and requires quite a bit of theological background text but she inserts it in a way that isn't dogmatic or boring. The story shifts continually between the 2007 trial and the events that lead up to it until the whole thing finally blends rather seamlessly together. The plot was terribly clever and there were enough twists to keep one guessing though I did get a bit confused at one point. I must say though, I'm not terribly sure how this qualifies as "Young Adult" due to the subject matter (some sexiness is embarked upon) and the language but then we live in an era where teens use oral-sex as an ice-breaker at parties so maybe I'm just getting old.
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Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (May 13, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0375851763
ISBN-13: 978-0375851766