title: Blueprint (Young Adult Fiction)
author: Charlotte Kerner
description: Grade 9 Up-Set in the near future when human cloning has become a reality, this emotionless, convoluted story is about Siri Sellin, the "daughter-sister" of Iris Sellin, a renowned composer/pianist who had herself cloned after the onset of multiple sclerosis. Angry at the recently deceased Iris, 22-year-old Siri reflects on their relationship in an attempt to create a unique identity of her own, separate from that of her "mother-twin." Despite the interesting premise, the book is not compelling largely because both characters are cold and self-absorbed, the emotionally laden dialogue has no real impact, and Siri's childhood and teenage memories are essentially glossed over. Her flashbacks skip arbitrarily between the present and past and between both her and Iris's memories. Although Siri finds peace and inner acceptance at the book's end, she is so clinical, so detached, and without sympathy that those readers who make it to the end will feel only relief that the book is over. Kerner's acknowledgments and afterword show the impressive amount of research she did on cloning as well as her interest in the subject. Libraries in search of irresistible teen fiction on the hot topic of human cloning should recommend Marilyn Kaye's outstanding "Replica" series (Bantam), in which the female protagonist is a teenage clone in search of details about her past.<BR><I>Leah J. Sparks, Bowie Public Library, MD </I><BR>Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: _A Proper Pursuit_  
  Copyright © 2007  
  Lynn Austin
  
  Cover design by Lookout Design, Inc.
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
  a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic,
  mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written
  permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed
  reviews.
  
  Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400  
  Hampshire Avenue South  
  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
  
  Bethany House Publishers is a division of  
  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
  
  Printed in the United States of America
  
  * * *
  
   **Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data**
  
  Austin, Lynn N.  
  A proper pursuit / Lynn Austin.  
  p. cm.  
  ISBN 978-0-7642-0440-1 (alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7642-2891-9 (pbk.)  
  1\. Young women—Fiction. 2. Chicago (Ill.)—Fiction. 3. United States—History—
  1933–1945—Fiction. I. Title.  
  PS3551.U839P76 2007  
  813'.54—dc22
  
  2007023563
  
  * * 