The Movie Version

Starred review from August 1, 2016
High school junior Amelia Anderson is always comparing events in her life to what their “movie version” counterparts would be, joined in her habit by her equally film-obsessed older brother, Toby. Toby is the star of the family, and Amelia looks up to him like no one else, so when he begins acting strangely she panics and starts covering for his increasingly disturbing behavior. After Toby is diagnosed with schizophrenia, Amelia and the rest of her family are devastated, even as she embarks on a tentative relationship with Epstein, a jam-band-loving Manhattanite she met during a summer babysitting gig in Montauk. Debut author Wunsch gives Amelia a powerful voice, alternately raw, vulnerable, and witty in its honesty about everything from sex (“I don’t even feel bad that I give my very first blow job right on the couch where my grandmother watches the evening news”) to family events spinning out of control. With a memorable, full-of-feeling narrator at its helm, this moving exploration of the effects of mental illness and a family’s new normal marks Wunsch as a writer to watch. Ages 14–up. Agent: Rachel Orr, Prospect Agency.