Dear Miss Metropolitan

February 1, 2021

Soul Train-loving Fern is abducted as a girl and rescued as a woman, and the horror she and two other girls endured went undetected by nosy Miss Metropolitan, the advice columnist who lived across the street. Debut novelist Ferrell plumbs Fern's anger, pain, and efforts to heal. With a 150,000-copy first printing.

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May 1, 2021

Gr 10 Up-A challenging work that gives voice and humanity to often-underestimated "victim girls." Fern, Gwen, and Jesenia are kidnapped in the late 1990s by Boss Man. Ten years later, two of the girls are freed, along with a toddler, but there's no sign of the third. The narrative is teased out in a circular manner as readers learn who these girls were before their captivity, what happened to them in that decade of torture, and what their lives look like after being found. The three girls develop a tight, complex sisterhood during their time together, which lends mystery to Jesenia's absence. The book unfolds initially among the girls' various points of view, then expands to the perspectives of other people affected by their discovery. The narrative moves all the way to 2039, where readers see how the life of Jesenia's daughter has developed, as well as the later adulthood of Fern and Gwen. This is an unconventional, at times challenging narrative in its frank discussion of assault and trauma as well as how deeply Ferrell embodies the voices of her characters. The ultimate effect is an elegant, fragmented series of memories and snippets that assemble together as a startlingly original whole. The lyrical writing style may challenge younger teens used to more conventional narratives. Fern and Gwen are Black and Jesenia is Latinx. VERDICT The realism and true crime element, along with its deep understanding of Black girlhood, are likely to appeal to many older teen readers and fans of Emma Donoghue's Room and Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones.-Ann Foster, Saskatoon P.L., Sask.

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Starred review from May 10, 2021
Ferrell’s innovative and harrowing debut novel (after the collection Don’t Erase Me) draws on the Ariel Castro kidnappings in Cleveland for a story about the abduction and captivity of three young women in Queens, N.Y., and their subsequent escape in 2007. Prior to their abductions in the late 1990s, each of the “victim-girls” finds coping mechanisms to survive their difficult situations. Fern, 13, distracts herself from her mother’s drug abuse and lecherous boyfriends with Soul Train VHS tapes; Gwin, 15, skirts her mother’s increasingly radical Jehovah’s Witnesses ideas by grooving to Prince; and the quick-witted Jesenia, nearly 17, leaves Queens with her doting but violent boyfriend. The three are chained in a decrepit house and tortured by their sadistic captor, known only as “Boss Man,” for close to 10 years. When they are finally discovered and freed, the surrounding community members, including Mathilda Marron, a newspaper advice columnist known as “Miss Metropolitan” who has lived next door to the house the girls were held in for four decades, grapple with guilt over not discovering them sooner. Composed of an assemblage of fragments, photos, articles by Mathilda, and first-person narration from the victims, this effectively unpacks both individual and collective trauma. It’s blistering from page one. Agent: Lisa Bankoff, Bankoff Collaborative.

June 1, 2021
The author of the story collection Don't Erase Me (1997) explores the lives of girls who have been kidnapped and tortured in her debut novel. Fern's mother works nights at the hospital, where she steals pills. Gwin loves the musician Prince, which is a source of conflict between her and her deeply religious mother. Fern barely remembers her father. Gwin never knew hers, but she did have Mr. P. until he decided to leave her mother. Fern and Gwin find each other when they are both being held captive by a man who keeps them in chains, beats them, and rapes them for years. Later, a third girl will join them. Before she was abducted, Jesenia had an abusive boyfriend; after she was abducted, she had her captor's baby. The first part of this novel shifts between the girls' early lives and their experiences as prisoners in Queens, New York. There are also glimpses of what happens when they are free again. Ferrell's blend of stream-of-consciousness with dark fairy-tale elements is inventive but only fitfully effective, and sections narrated by other voices--including the journalist whose advice column, for reasons that are not at all clear, gives this book its title--are more confusing than illuminating. The second half of this novel is less repetitive than the first, but it also makes less sense. There is, for example, a very long chapter that seems to be Jesenia's daughter's answers to questions she's being asked before she can be released from the hospital after a suicide attempt. There are footnotes. It's not difficult to envision this chapter as a powerful short story, but it's a challenge to read after having endured the first half. Ferrell is asking a lot of her audience. What she gives is sometimes too much, sometimes too little. A punishing read in terms of both content and style.

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June 1, 2021
Teenage girls Fern, Gwin, and Jesenia are abducted by a man and held captive in the basement of a house in Queens, New York. After enduring sexual and physical abuse and starvation for nearly a decade, two of the victims are rescued by the police. Miss Metropolitan, an advice columnist for the local newspaper, condemns herself for having lived across the street from where the women were being held without catching on to their imprisonment. The mystery of the whereabouts of the third victim becomes an ongoing investigation after evidence of a child proves her existence. Ferrell's debut novel is a brave examination into the accumulation of unresolved generational trauma and its detrimental outcomes. She weaves in different time periods, offering insight into the lives of the girls before their kidnapping, the collective sisterhood built during their bondage, and their courageous healing into womanhood afterward. Ferrell writes with a masterful honesty that champions her protagonists, and also leaves a clear space for readers to examine their own wounds.

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Starred review from July 1, 2021

DEBUT Ferrell, author of the multi-award-winning story collection Don't Erase Me, offers a powerful debut novel about three girls who are abducted and kept by Boss Man for 10 years in a house on Amity Lane in Queens, NY, where they are tortured, raped, and starved. When Fern Daisy Delores, Gwindolyn Parsons, and Jesenia Diaz escape this Queens House of Horrors, the neighbors wonder why they didn't know what was going on in their own community. TV talk show hosts and journalists (particularly the eponymous advice columnist at the local weekly, who lives right across the street) are among the multitude of people who badger the girls to talk about their long ordeal, hindering their recovery. Ferrell deftly portrays the girls' captivity and their lives after gaining freedom and supplies backstory for each of them, all while keeping the pages turning to create a spellbinding story. Images, poem snippets, and lyrics from songs by Diana Ross, Prince, and Billy Ocean break up the haunting prose and clarify the fragmentary nature of the girls' world. VERDICT This tale of pain and healing will keep readers fully engaged and discussion groups talking for a long time.--Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH

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