The Inconceivable Life of Quinn
The first thing that struck me about this book is author Marianna Baer’s impeccable instinct for teen dialogue. From page one, the reader is transported convincingly into sixteen-year-old Quinn Cutler’s life, and the author manages to hold us there until its unusual, ethereal ending.
The second thing that struck me is the oddness of the storyline. Quinn, the daughter of a high-profile congress candidate, is pregnant, with no memory of ever having been with someone. Various theories are explored: did something happen when she and her boyfriend were fooling around? Could she have been drugged? As Quinn and boyfriend Jesse focus in on the two weeks around the estimated time of conception, looking for clues, a group of religious fanatics gather outside Quinn’s house convinced that she is pregnant with the next messiah. Meanwhile, the Internet goes into a freefall of speculation and Quinn’s parents order her to stay at home in an effort to protect her. Baer handles Quinn’s confinement deftly (you almost feel like slipping under the water in one of her many baths, too, to escape the tension in the house) and her understandably fraught relationship with boyfriend Jesse is both real and touching. To appreciate this book, readers will need to think outside their normal frame of understanding and, ultimately, fragments of the story didn’t quite come together for me – I would like to have had more of a sense of her enigmatic deceased grandmother’s life, a core element of the plot, for example. A unique and thought-provoking read, however.
