Kim
Rating:
Review
Contrary to the title, main character Karena Jorge is not a stormchaser. Through the first half of this story, Karena does manage to chase after her twin brother, Charles, though, and he is a stormchaser. Charles is also bipolar, and Karena has not seen him in 20 years when she gets a phone call from a hospital in Kansas saying that Charles is there. By the time Karena gets to the hospital the next day, Charles is gone, but since the climate is ripe for tornado activity, she hooks up with a local stormchasing company on the pretext of writing a story about chasing storms. Good fortune shines down on Karena in the form of Kevin, a tour guide/stormchaser who is, in my opinion, the best character in this story, and soon-to-be love interest of Karena. And as luck would have it, Karena finally catches up with Charles, where we quickly learn of a horrible secret the twins have been keeping for two decades, and it is busting at the seams to get out. Ms. Blum's follow up to her debut novel Those Who Save Us is a good one, even though I found Karena to be a bit one-dimensional and not terribly likable until she meets Kevin. I still wanted to pick this book back up whenever I had time.
Best Line: "Memory is a trapdoor."
Suzanne
Rating:
Review
Twins always have a dark secret - at least in all the books I've been reading! This one is set amidst tornadoes, which are dark and dangerous in their own right and have a strange allure for some people. Minneapolis reporter Karena hasn't seen her tornado-chasing twin Charles in 20 years. He thinks she betrayed him; she feels completely devoted to him. Back then, they were barely 18 years old and had just bound each other to secrecy over something that went horribly wrong. Charles is afflicted with bipolar disorder which led to some nasty conflicts at home, especially when he refused to try any more medications after a series of unsuccessful treatments. Now after all these years Karena's never gotten over how he left her behind to live a completely estranged life, so when she gets a call from a mental institution three states away saying he's checked in there she flies down without a moment's hesitation. She then proceeds to convince her boss that she should do a gig reporting on stormchasers so she can hang out down there for bit. Charles has somehow managed to keep his passion for stormchasing front and center in his life, without holding down a permanent job or accumulating any of the ties that bind the majority of people. This makes for an interesting and unusual backdrop, with all the lingo and drama of awe-inspiring tornadoes and the dedicated, geeky subculture of risk-takers who chase them instead of going into the basement for safety. The whole thing made for an enjoyable read.
Best Line: "This is not a lesson she has ever wanted to learn, and now that she has she can't unlearn it." (pg. 215)
