Jane and Lily are sisters who have always shared a vivid imaginary world. Jane, the elder sibling, was always able to create games her sister Lily loved. But Lily wants to grow up. She starts making friends at school and gets her first boyfriend, while Jane seems stuck in increasingly violent fantasies.

The family comes to realize that Jane is mentally ill. She is put on anti-psychotic medication, but even with the aid of medication Jane realizes she will never be the same kind of normal as her younger, popular sister. An accident separates the sisters, and the story, narrated from opposite sides of the grave, is about the two sisters --- one living, one dead --- still trying to make peace with the life they shared together.

Adele Griffin is the author of a number of psychologically insightful thrillers for young people. Previous books include THE OTHER SHEPARDS, about two young people haunted by the death of the elder siblings they were born to replace; SONS OF LIBERTY, about brothers banding together to overcome their controlling and abusive father; and AMANDINE, about a girl who becomes enmeshed in a dangerous and manipulative friendship. Griffin is a master at blurring the line between what is real and what is imagined, making her books truly spooky.

Mental illness is a popular subject within novels for young people. The teen years are when many mental illnesses begin to appear. WHERE I WANT TO BE is an insightful portrait of living with mental illness, but it never reveals what illness from which Jane is suffering. It is not alone in this omission. Most fiction on this subject never makes a diagnosis. This does an enormous disservice to the reader, and encourages people to look at mental illness as one large disease rather than a variety of different disorders, all with different causes, symptoms, and treatments.

Nevertheless, readers are likely to enjoy this story about a sibling rivalry that continues into the afterlife. WHERE I WANT TO BE is a late-summer teen gothic about ghosts that drive VW bugs, pick strawberries, and lounge in the dusky twilight by the pool.

   --- Reviewed by Sarah A. Wood

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