There are many reasons to like Beth Kephart’s One Thing Stolen. The story unfolds in
present-day Florence and includes interesting historical references. Nadia has
been reluctantly displaced from her Philadelphia home and her best friend
Maggie in order to live temporarily in Florence with her mother, brother and father,
a professor who is writing a book about the 1966 flooding of the Arno river and
the so called “mud angels” –an onslaught of volunteers who converged on the
city to save its artwork. Much of the
book is an interior monologue conveying Nadia’s growing fascination with a
mysterious and beautiful boy on a Vespa who may or may not really exist and her
memories of time spent with Maggie back in West Philadelphia. At the same time,
the reader becomes increasingly attuned to the fact that something is wrong
with Nadia. Her speaking abilities are deteriorating, and she is increasingly
obsessed with stealing objects that she then incorporates into intricate nests she
constructs and hides in her temporary bedroom. Over time, the reader gains more
of the family’s perspective, and a neurologist is brought in to untangle what
is happening to Nadia. The suspense mounts as the reader eagerly waits to find
out whether Benedetto, the boy on the Vespa, is real, and what affliction Nadia
has been stricken with.
Many readers will enjoy this book’s suspense, its characters
and the lovely and historical setting. However, those who find flashbacks and
changes in narrator difficult to follow will find the story confusing, and
become frustrated towards the end of the book when Nadia’s friend Maggie
suddenly becomes the narrator just at the point where we wish a clear
resolution to all of the mystery. In addition, it is not particularly
believable that a well-respected neurologist who is an old friend of Nadia’s
father and a former “mud angel” happens to coincidentally be on-hand to help
the family. Recommended with
reservations. 2015
D. Rosen-Perez
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