From Publishers Weekly
Feeling invisible is only one problem for 16-year-old Faith Duckle, the engaging protagonist of Davis's auspicious debut novel (an expansion of her short story "Faith, or Tips for the Successful Young Lady" from her critically acclaimed short story collection, Circling the Drain). The ironically named Faith is also running from a brutal assault that led to a suicide attempt and a stay in rehab, where she shed 48 pounds but not her despair. When she returns to school, nobody seems to notice, except her imaginary "fat girl" alter ego who reminds her, "There are all kinds of anger.... Some kinds are just more useful than others," and convinces her to exact bloody vengeance on the boy who was a key participant in the violence. Fleeing the aftermath of her angry attack, she joins the small traveling Fartlesworth Circus, where she cleans up after elephants and horses and gradually detaches herself from the haunting fat girl who delights in dogging her every move. Her new identity, Annabelle Cabinet, revels in the spangled sawdust world of performing acrobats, animals, clowns and freaks, and begins to heal. Davis revitalizes the moth-eaten circus motif with her tensely lyrical prose and full-bodied characterizations. Faith/Annabelle's gradual path to happiness among the "misfits" of the big top leads her, and readers, on a fast-paced, well-documented (Davis actually toured with a circus in 1999) adventure toward self-acceptance. While some readers may be dissatisfied with an ambiguous ending that eschews a sentimental resolution to Faith's metamorphosis, Davis remains true to her character's emerging independence, confidence and faith in the future.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Faith was a fat girl, but after a suicide attempt keeps her hospitalized for seven months, she returns to school thinner, more attractive, and optimistic that things will get better. Not only do they stay the same, but the "fat girl" inside her is still serving as a gluttonous, pessimistic shadow and vocal instigator, trying to persuade her to skip town and to take revenge on her enemies. The fat girl finally gets her way, and Faith joins the circus, hoping to end up with her new friend Charlie. He is nowhere to be found, but Faith, now calling herself Annabelle, finds a home with the ragtag group of performers. Much of the story is heartbreaking in its depiction of teen cruelty, and of the protagonist's efforts to maintain her sanity in spite of hardships. Davis's writing is at its finest when the protagonist is struggling through the constant trials with her distant mother, her ineffectual teachers, and her one true friend's suicide. Girls like Faith, and the reason for her suicide attempt, are well known in both fact and fiction. The author succeeds in making this character unique, with flaws that teens will relate to. Readers will root for Faith, and the heartwarming conclusion will leave them satisfied.Jamie Watson, Enoch Pratt Free Library, BaltimoreCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Davis' stunning first novel expands a short story from her collection Circling the Drain (1999). Lonely for her dead father, an outcast at her high school, Faith Duckle has only one confidant: the Fat Girl, a grotesquely distorted version of Faith as she was before a brutal sexual assault drove her to attempt suicide. The Fat Girl follows Faith everywhere, consoling her, counseling her, and relentlessly urging her to exact vengeance on the popular boys who hurt her. Faith gives in and attacks one of them after school, and then she and the Fat Girl run away to join the circus. Davis is expert at rendering the small cruelties of life in Faith's bleak hometown, juxtaposing them with the frayed grandeur and scrappy glamour of the circus, where she eventually comes to terms with herself. This is an astonishing debut: dark, disturbing, and fiercely openhearted. Meredith Parets
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Follow sixteen-year-old Faith Duckle in this audacious and darkly funny tale as she moves through the difficult journey from the schoolyard to the harlequin world of the circus. At fifteen, Faith was lured under the bleachers by a bunch of boys at a football game and raped. Now, almost a year later, a newly thin Faith is haunted by her past, and by the cruel, flippant ghost of her formerly fat self, who is bent on revenge." This quest for retribution eventually compels Faith to violence, forcing her to flee home in search of the only friend she has - a troubled but caring busboy named Charlie, who is the lover of a sideshow performer - and to tumble into the colorful, transient world of the circus. But as she leaves her old life behind and dives headfirst into a world of adult passions and dreams, mercurial allegiances, and exhilarating self-discovery (while paying considerable dues with a shovel in the elephant tent), Faith ultimately begins to discover who she is and all that she is capable of.

FROM THE CRITICS

Clea Simon

Despite the grim setup of our protagonist's story, this novel is one of unlikely triumph, a coming-of-age story with twists a shade darker than the average adolescent's, replete with romance and danger, life lessons, and a completely satisfying conclusion.

How can such a dark book be so full of life? Credit author Davis's subtle depiction of Faith's depression and despair, and her exuberant rise into recovery.—The Boston Globe

Booklist

Davis￯﾿ﾽ stunning first novel expands a short story from her collection Circling the Drain (1999). Lonely for her dead father, an outcast at her high school, Faith Duckle has only one confidant: the Fat girl, a grotesquely distorted version of Faith as she was before a brutal sexual assault drove her to attempt suicide. The Fat Girl follows Faith everywhere, consoling her, counseling her, and relentlessly urging her to exact vengeance on the popular boys who hurt her. Faith gives in and attacks one of them after school, and then she and the Fat Girl run away to join the circus. Davis is expert at rendering the small cruelties of life in Faith￯﾿ﾽs bleak hometown, juxtaposing them with the frayed grandeur and scrappy glamour of the circus, where she eventually comes to terms with herself. This is an astonishing debut: dark, disturbing, and fiercely openhearted.

The New Yorker

The circus has long been a refuge for society’s misfits; for some, it is the inherent danger of the acts that offers a welcome escape from reality. Faith—the heroine of the first novel by the late Amanda Davis, Wonder When You'll Miss Me—runs away from her high school, her mother, and the police and remakes herself as Annabelle, the elephant-dung mucker for a traveling circus troupe. Psychologically disjointed (she is trailed at all times by her imaginary alter ego), Annabelle seeks solace in acrobatics. “I wanted to tell her about the woman on the trapeze. How I’d held my breath and how my heart had pounded,” Davis writes. “How I’d seen a whole world up there in the air, and the one down here had disappeared.”

Ascension, a novel by Steve Galloway, focuses on the travails of a wire walker named Salvo Ursari. As a child, his parents were killed by Transylvanian villagers; forty-five years later, during the family act on the high wire, his twin daughters plunge to their death. But while Ursari is on the wire, all that matters is the next step. “Immediately everything receded. All his fears, all his memories, all he loved and all he loathed,” Galloway writes. The eponymous heroine (based on a real-life tiger trainer) of Robert Hough’s The Final Confession of Mabel Stark joins the circus after escaping from a psychiatric ward, where she was committed for refusing to fulfill her wifely duties. For Mabel, life with her big cats reminds her that happiness always has its dark side: “No matter how well things’re going, you always know it’s only a matter of time before a claw catches, or a tooth snags, or a forepaw lashes, and your contentment feels bearable again.” (Andrea Thompson)

Publishers Weekly

Feeling invisible is only one problem for 16-year-old Faith Duckle, the engaging protagonist of Davis's auspicious debut novel (an expansion of her short story "Faith, or Tips for the Successful Young Lady" from her critically acclaimed short story collection, Circling the Drain). The ironically named Faith is also running from a brutal assault that led to a suicide attempt and a stay in rehab, where she shed 48 pounds but not her despair. When she returns to school, nobody seems to notice, except her imaginary "fat girl" alter ego who reminds her, "There are all kinds of anger.... Some kinds are just more useful than others," and convinces her to exact bloody vengeance on the boy who was a key participant in the violence. Fleeing the aftermath of her angry attack, she joins the small traveling Fartlesworth Circus, where she cleans up after elephants and horses and gradually detaches herself from the haunting fat girl who delights in dogging her every move. Her new identity, Annabelle Cabinet, revels in the spangled sawdust world of performing acrobats, animals, clowns and freaks, and begins to heal. Davis revitalizes the moth-eaten circus motif with her tensely lyrical prose and full-bodied characterizations. Faith/Annabelle's gradual path to happiness among the "misfits" of the big top leads her, and readers, on a fast-paced, well-documented (Davis actually toured with a circus in 1999) adventure toward self-acceptance. While some readers may be dissatisfied with an ambiguous ending that eschews a sentimental resolution to Faith's metamorphosis, Davis remains true to her character's emerging independence, confidence and faith in the future. Agent, Henry Dunow. (Mar.) Forecast: Given its theme of adolescent angst and the author's fresh and accessible style, booksellers could easily recommend this title as a YA crossover. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Faith was a fat girl, but after a suicide attempt keeps her hospitalized for seven months, she returns to school thinner, more attractive, and optimistic that things will get better. Not only do they stay the same, but the "fat girl" inside her is still serving as a gluttonous, pessimistic shadow and vocal instigator, trying to persuade her to skip town and to take revenge on her enemies. The fat girl finally gets her way, and Faith joins the circus, hoping to end up with her new friend Charlie. He is nowhere to be found, but Faith, now calling herself Annabelle, finds a home with the ragtag group of performers. Much of the story is heartbreaking in its depiction of teen cruelty, and of the protagonist's efforts to maintain her sanity in spite of hardships. Davis's writing is at its finest when the protagonist is struggling through the constant trials with her distant mother, her ineffectual teachers, and her one true friend's suicide. Girls like Faith, and the reason for her suicide attempt, are well known in both fact and fiction. The author succeeds in making this character unique, with flaws that teens will relate to. Readers will root for Faith, and the heartwarming conclusion will leave them satisfied.-Jamie Watson, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information. Read all 6 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

This is a marvelous modern-girl odyssey, dark and comic and poignant and smart, that shows off Davis' wonderful prose and the freshness and wisdom of her wild storytelling. — Susan Orlean

Amanda Davis writes prose that is precise, elegant and strong, and she tells a story that is at once harrowing and, strangely, filled with adventure. — Michael Chabon

This book is a circus Pygmalion — a spectacular tale of injury, heartbreak, and metamorphosis. Our young heroine — our fair lady — exists in a strange chrysalis of her own invention, until she is ready to wake from her dreams and her nightmares. Amanda Davis's prose is gorgeous and lucid, and the pace of her story-telling is one of ever-increasing emotional velocity, causing the reader to fall in love with her characters, and with her book. — Jonathan Ames

Amanda Davis has a wicked and inspired imagination, and her her first novel, Wonder When You'll Miss Me, is just plain fabulous. This is a story full of extraordinary events told with extraordinary skill. — Brady Udall

An utterly unique take on what it means to run away and join a circus. Filled with a marvelous array of characters, this is the story of recovery from trauma, and the triumph in finally integrating the soul and the self. — Elizabeth Strout