Aftershocks

By William Lavender

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The aftershocks of this young adult novel are less about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake than the ramifications of an adulterous affair. Jessie Wainwright is a fourteen-year-old girl who is different from many of her peers—she dreams of becoming a doctor, like her father, who has pinned those hopes on her much less academic brother. Struggling against society’s expectations, she is faced with a monstrous situation when she spies her father sneaking up the servants’ stairs to frolic with the lovely Chinese housemaid—a sweet girl who has become Jessie’s friend. Soon the housemaid quits her position and disappears into the city’s thriving and dangerous Chinatown. Jessie spends the next three years searching for her and the little sister her father so carelessly sired. The situation is unpleasant and awkward, yet young readers will easily identify with Jessie, whose thinking, attitudes, and solutions are very modern for the times. Overall, Aftershocks is a quick read, and a deft portrait of a city undergoing seismic physical and societal changes. Age 12 and up.