Wally Wander

From the book cover:
When Wally is young she learns that being her friend can be dangerous to your health. As she goes through life, the idea of her deadly contamination persists and is even reinforced. As a result Wally begins to spend some of her time living somewhere else, upstairs in her head. Wally wanders into her space bubble which floats somewhere just below God’s space.

My Review:

Wally Wander is a thought-provoking novel about a dysfunctional family. Wally, the protagonist, provides first-person narration of her life story, starting when she is 12 years old.

Wally’s story is one of loss. She never really knew her father – he drowned when she was young. Her adopted younger brother, Oliver, dies in a tragic motor vehicle accident when she is 12 years old, and then shortly after Wally’s pet chicken is beheaded and eaten for dinner.

There are many plot twists and turns and ethical quandaries in this novel. They’re not hard to keep track of, but they are hard to pin down to a timeline seeing as some of the characters’ ages don’t seem to match up. (If I could change anything about this book, I would ask NovaMelia to divide the book into sections and clearly state what year the events take place in.)
After the death of Oliver and the pet chicken, Wally and her older brother, Norman, are sent to live with their aunt and uncle because their mom is not doing well. It’s not clear what their mother’s medical diagnosis is. The story then skips forward to when Wally is older and her mother has Parkinson’s disease.

I want to love this novel but I can’t because there are just too many plot elements that don’t add up. Years after Oliver’s death, Wally finds out that he was really her older brother Norman’s child with his adopted daughter, Rosie – Norman’s wife and Wally’s mother both wanted a child so they concocted a plan to have Norman impregnate Rosie through artificial insemination. At the time this occurred, Rosie, who is autistic, was supposedly at the age of consent. However, in the original scene where Oliver dies, Rosie is portrayed as a teenager. Years later, when Wally is all grown up, Rosie is still a teenager. She is suppose to be around the same age as her brother Nigel, who goes to live with Wally when he is 13 years old. Confusing, right?

3/5

About the author:
NovaMelia was born in England and moved to the U.S.A when she was seventeen years old. She attended the University of Pittsburgh where she studied creative writing and psychology. She has lived in a number of states - including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Florida - and now resides in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband, George.

About the book:

Wally Wander by NovaMelia
ISBN: 978-1-4327-7910-8
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Date of publish: February 24, 2012
Pages: 212
S.R.P.: $16.95