Every Visible Thing by Lisa Carey

When 15-year-old Hugh went missing (assumed dead) it seemed it was his younger brother and sister who became invisible. Five years later, Lena, now fifteen, and Owen, 10, have slipped further from each other, and further from reality. Their parents live in a state of avoidance, having traveled through panic, grief, and denial, and barely register their remaining children's presence, never speaking of the one that went away. The children struggle to fit into a puzzle that will seemingly never be complete. He is a ghost in their classrooms, and kitchen, and basement, and church. He is everywhere and nowhere. Even more cruel is the reality that Hugh fit in; they do not. Both Owen and Lena are drawn to the companionship and overt confident swagger of a Bad Boy. For Lena, it is, in part, a way to connect with her brother's past, even wearing his old leather jacket and clothes. For Owen, it is consuming: a friend, an idol, a way out of isolation at school, and later, a horrible, important lesson in trust. Tragedy occurs on a number of levels in this story, the smaller ones being no less compelling or devastating than the ones requiring a call to 911.

Every Visible Thing is Lisa Carey's fourth novel, sensitive, lyrical, and compelling. It is, at the same time, gritty, heart wrenching, and disturbing, with just a touch of the ethereal.

"When Owen wants something, he prays directly to Hugh for it. When he feels shame, or the urge to confess things he does not imagine kneeling in penance before a priest or God or a Jesus with an exposed, thorny heart. He imagines a painting that once hung in his father's office, an angel with six wings folded in toward his body like the petals of a flower. Wings that look strong enough, even in repose, to lift someone from mortal danger. In the middle of these wings Owen imagines the face of a ninth-grade boy, set against the photographer's background of blue sky. The creature hovers somewhere above his right shoulder, not judging or cajoling like parents or peers, but simply smiling, as if he has already seen it all, and nothing Owen decides to do will surprise him."

Carey's previous novels are The Mermaids Singing, In the Country of the Young, and Love in the Asylum. I think Every Visible Thing would also be appropriate for older teens who are not uncomfortable with topics such as suicide, drug use and mild sexuality.