The Divine Economy of Salvation

September 30, 2002
A nun is haunted by the lurid death of a former classmate in this overwrought debut novel that's equal parts mystery and coming-of-age story. When Sister Angela receives a seemingly innocuous package containing a silver candlestick, it jolts her into a series of guilty flashbacks to her teenage days at St. X. School for Girls, a fancy Catholic boarding school in Ottawa, where she insinuated herself into a powerful clique of sex-obsessed girls called the Sisterhood. Events spun out of control when they invited a diligent classmate, Bella, to join their group on the condition that she lose her virginity. Bella's attempts to do so led to her grisly death. Angela has been haunted by the tragedy ever since, and she takes the arrival of the candlestick as a sign that she must finally reckon with her role in Bella's death. The crucible of the Catholic girls' school is always rich material, but Angela's schoolmates (who include a pretty, rich popular girl, a mousy hanger-on and other familiar characters) are underdeveloped, which is especially disappointing given the amount of space Uppal devotes to Angela's school days. Indeed, the mystery of who sent the candlestick loses its urgency amid all of the detailed flashbacks, and Uppal's resolution is simply absurd (even Angela herself seems not to want to dwell on it). Those who can't get enough of back-stabbing schoolgirl yarns might make it to the end, but, with the exception of the gruesome scene on which it hinges, the novel is unmemorable.

July 15, 2002
Uppal's beautifully crafted first novel centers around Angela, a nun living in a small convent in Ottawa. While piety and devotion to Catholicism are assumed to propel her, Angela knows that her vocational choice has more to do with guilt over wrongs she committed as an adolescent than with religious fervor. Now, as shame infuses her daily routines, she is forced to confront her history and honestly assess her role in the death of a peer nearly three decades earlier. Uppal's evocation of girl-cliques and the power they wield in differentiating outcast from in-crowd is realistically drawn and painful to revisit. Likewise, her rendering of puerile jealousies and the subtle ways that class differences tear at group cohesion is brilliantly presented. Although the book's conclusion is a bit less developed than the body of the text, this a stand-out debut and a wise, resonant, and unsettling look at female violence and the nature of family, faith, friendship, and repentance. Highly recommended for all libraries. - Eleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn, NY

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2002
(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)