Leaving Poppy by Kate Cann

Publisher: Scholastic
Release date: July 3, 2006
Paperback, 325 pages

The story starts when eighteen year old Amber leaves a taxi and searches the street for the student house where she is going to stay for the coming year. Amber secretly has left home, after her sister Poppy destroyed her summer vacation plans for after her school graduation. Poppy is a girl with episodes and is living in her own little world; if she doesn't get what she wants, she starts to cry and Amber has to take care for her and help her all the time, and she also has to take care of her mom. But ruining her summer vacation plans was the final drop in a full bucket of irritation, and Amber has left her home. And has said her plans to go to univerity goodbye..

Now she is staying in a student house in Cornwall, where she has new house mates: Kaz, Ben, Rory and Chrissie. Amber immediately feels at home and the other teens living in the house become real friends. She goes out to look for a job, and lands in the little beach restaurant which is owned by Bert, and has an assistant named Marthy. Soon Amber's cooking talents are noticed and she can stay. So she has a new great house and a real paying job! But she still thinks of home often, and guilt that she left Poppy and her mom are rising up in her.

And what is up with the old Victorian student house itself? The attic up there seems to hide a dark secret, and Amber sees, feels and smells odd things, and it seems a previous tennant of the house never left the house for real.. And when Amber lands in the hospital and her mom and Poppy come to visit her, things change again and Poppy is going to be the new hirer of the mysterious attic, and after that things get more and more odd...

Leaving Poppy is a book that you just can't leave. Kate Cann wrote an amazing original and great teen novel with this. The story has many layers and themes: teenage confusion, family trouble, mystery, sibling rivalry, horror, romance and great new friends. You just can't go wrong when all this is combined in a spooky gripping novel. All the characters in it where so real, and I just couldn't put it down and had to know what kind of ghostly kind of thing was going on with the old student house. A great original read of one of the best teen authors, this book really is a winner.
And for my dutch readers a little note: Leaving Poppy is in Nederland verschenen onder de titel Laat Me

Look here for the my interview with Kate Cann