Hope and Lizzie are sisters who are just one year apart.  They've been close for many years, but one day when Hope comes in and sees her sister Lizzie holding a shotgun, she realizes that their lives are very different now.  And that Lizzie has been keeping secrets.  After Lizzie is taken away from the family, Hope is left behind with their mother and with a lot of questions.  Why was Lizzie so quiet and depressed lately?  What secrets was she keeping?  And why would she want to kill herself?

Glimpse is the latest enthralling and emotional book by Carol Lynch Williams, who has been one of my favorite teen authors for years.  This is her first novel in verse, which means that the story is told as a series of poems.  The trend of writing novels in verse has become quite popular over the last few years.  Some authors like Williams have tried experimenting with this form, while authors like Sonya Sones and Ellen Hopkins have written multiple books in this format.

If you enjoy this book and want to read more by Carol Lynch Williams, be sure to also check out her 2009 novel The Chosen One, which we recommended on our latest Stuff For the Teen Age list.

And if you'd like to exercise the poetic part of your brain, here are a few more novels in verse that you might enjoy:

Because I am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse

Sister Slam and the Poetic Motormouth Road Trip by Linda Oatman High

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

Seeing Emily by Joyce Lee Wong

Street Love by Walter Dean Myers

God Went to Beauty School by Cynthia Rylant

The Geography of Girlhood by Kirsten Smith

What My Mother Doesn't Know by Sonya Sones

Becoming Billie Holiday by Carole Boston Weatherford

Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff