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Revolution
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Revolution (2010) (edit title/settings)

by Jennifer Donnelly (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

BROOKLYN: Andi Alpers is on the edge. She’s angry at her father for leaving, angry at her mother for not being able to cope, and heartbroken by the loss of her younger brother, Truman. Rage and grief are destroying her. And she’s about to be expelled from Brooklyn Heights’ most prestigious... read more

Summary edit see section history

Twenty-first century Brooklyn is home to Andi, a high school senior who is struggling to deal with the death of her younger brother and the guilt she feels for her part in his death. Andi is a talented guitarist. Her mother is barely maintaining her sanity, and her Nobel prize-winning father... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

Twenty-first century Brooklyn is home to Andi, a high school senior who is struggling to deal with the death of her younger brother and the guilt she feels for her part in his death. Andi is a talented guitarist. Her mother is barely maintaining her sanity, and her Nobel prize-winning father is a famous geneticist who decides to put the mother into a mental institution and take Andi with him to Paris, where she is to create the outline and introduction to her graduation thesis. Her paper is to focus on the life and music of a fictitious composer from the era of the French Revolution, Amade Mahlerbeau.

In Paris, Andi and her father are hosted by historians who allow Andi to play an 18th century guitar. In a secret compartment of the guitar case, Andi discovers the diary of a young, 18th century woman named Alex. Alex is the au pair for Louis-Charles, the "Lost Dauphin" of France.

Revolution's main character, Andi, is a talented musician and high school senior at a posh Brooklyn private school hell-bent on destruction. Her little brother recently died in a tragic accident, her mother is teetering on the edge of sanity and her Nobel Prize winning father has focused on his career as a famous geneticist, forgoing all family obligations. Andi is at the point of being expelled from her school when her father decides to intervene and takes her to Paris to stay with family friends while he performs an important DNA test on what may be the remains of Louis-Charles, the "Lost Dauphin" of France. Andi takes breaks from the writing of her paper to read journal entries, and becomes engrossed in the life of Alex.

Andi also finds romance and musical companionship in contemporary Paris before being launched through time into 18th century Paris, where she spends time with Amade Mahlerbeau and learns previously undiscovered facts about his family of origin.

The epilogue leaves us with a feeling of resolution and victory for the main character, to whom the reader becomes so close in this extremely well-written book.

Characters/People edit see section history

  • Andi: The main character. She suffers from hallucinations.
  • Alex: Second female lead from Paris.
  • Virgil: Franco-Tunisian musician who Andi meets in Paris.
  • Amade Malherbeau: Eighteenth-century guitar composer and subject of Andi's senior thesis.
  • Vijay Gupta: Andi's best friend; super-student.
  • Maximilien Robespierre: An important figure in France's history from the revolution in the 18th century.
  • Nick: Andi's "friend" from school who is always drunk or on drugs.
  • Dr. Becker: A doctor from the mental hospital who takes care of Andi's mother.
  • Jules: Virgil's best friend.
  • Truman: Andi's younger brother.
  • Nathan: Andi's music teacher and a good friend to her.
  • Lilli: Guillaume Lenotre's wife.
  • Yves Bonnard: A very rude head of records at a records library in Paris.
  • Remy: Both the name of the restaurant and its owner who can be both nice and a little hot headed.
  • Louis-Charles: The son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, the lost king of France.
  • Danton: a French philopher
  • Max: A schizophrenic living in an old building that's going to be torn down.
  • Fauvel: Add a description of this character.
  • Bette: Andi Alpers, a wealthy teenage girl from Brooklyn, has had many things go wrong in her life. Her younger brother dies at the age of ten, causing her mother to go insane and her father to walk out on the family. While the guitar prodigy is left to take care of her mentally ill mother, her world-famous geneticist father travels the world with another woman. The guilt of her brother’s death and the destruction of the family eat away at her, causing her to give up on school and let her grades fall. After two years of not speaking to her father, he shows up at her house and demands that she comes with him to Paris. He checks Andi’s mother into a mental hospital and they’re on a plane within the next few days. They stay at her father’s friend’s house, who happens to be a historian. While there, she comes across a diary from the French revolution written by a girl named Alexandrine Paradis. After many attempts to keep away from the diary, she realizes that it is near impossible. The heartbreaking story of the young girl that lived hundreds of years ago will alter Andi’s life and will take her somewhere extremely unexpected.
  • Minna: Andi's father's new wife.
  • Arden: Nick's on and off girlfriend.
  • Ms. Beezemeyer: Headmistress at St. Anselm's
  • Mama: Alex and Bette's mother
  • Rupert
  • Rene
  • Guillaume Lenotre: The author of Liberty and one of the men hired by France's Royal Trust to research an age old question about the boy king Louis-charles. Also a life-long friend of Andi's father.
  • Dr. Lewis Alpers: Andi's father and the other man hired by France's Royal Trust.
Show all 27 characters
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Quotes edit see section history

  • “Incorruptible, ineluctable and indestructible!”
    Maximilien R. Peters
  • “Making music on an instrument like this feels like being with a boy who's so hot, you have to kiss him everywhere all at once.”
    Andi
  • “It feels like I've stumbled into the basement of a mass murderer with a flair for interior design.”
    Andi
  • “I finish with the nose ring and decide to give Ludwig some green hair, too. It suits him.”
    Andi
  • “I look for trailers that shelter the stars between takes. And the tables covered with food in case the crew gets hungry and the angry little peons whose job it is to keep the great unwashed away from Robert Pattinson.”
    Andi
  • “She's wearing a big belt with Prada on it- Italian for insecure.”
    -Andi
  • “The decent people of Paris had hidden themselves behind closed doors as decent people always do. Massacres could not happen if it were not for decent people.”
    Alex
  • “History is a Rorschach test, people. what you see when you look at it tells you as much about yourself as it does about the past.”
  • “"I throw pots." -So does my mom, at the walls.”
  • “"Why did you do this thing?" he says brokenly. His eyes are bright with tears. "Why did you give your life for nothing? The boy will die. You said so yourself. Now you will, too. And likely myself as well. If the guards get hold of me, I am a dead man. And for what? What did you change? The light you made is snuffed out. Hope is trampled upon. This wretched world goes on, as stupid and brutal as it was today." <...> "Oh, dead man, you're dead wrong," I tell him. "The world goes on stupid and brutal, but I do not. Can't you see? I do not."”
    Andi
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • There is only one thing I fear now—love. For I have seen it and I have felt it and I know that it is love, not death, that undoes us.
    Highlighted by 124 Kindle customers
  • I don’t like hope very much. In fact, I hate it. It’s the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard. It’s bad news. The worst. It’s sharp sticks and cherry bombs. When hope shows up, it’s only a matter of time until someone gets hurt.
    Highlighted by 109 Kindle customers
  • I’m wishing he could see that music lives. Forever. That it’s stronger than death. Stronger than time. And that its strength holds you together when nothing else can.
    Highlighted by 103 Kindle customers
  • Because after all the shattered hopes, after all the blood and death, we woke as if from a nightmare only to find that the ugly still are not beautiful and the dull still do not sparkle. That this one sings better than that one. And he got the position I wanted. And her cow gives more milk. And they have a bigger house. And he married the girl I loved. And no writ, no bill, no law, nor declaration will ever change it.
    Highlighted by 94 Kindle customers
  • She alone knew that one must meet the world’s madness with more madness.
    Highlighted by 71 Kindle customers
  • Turn away. From the darkness, the madness, the pain. Open your eyes and look at the light.
    Highlighted by 66 Kindle customers
  • “Life’s all about the revolution, isn’t it?” he said. “The one inside, I mean.”
    Highlighted by 65 Kindle customers
  • I will rain down silver and gold for you. I will shatter the black night, break it open, and pour out a million stars. Turn away from the darkness, the madness, the pain. Open your eyes. And know that I am here. That I remember and hope. Open your eyes and look at the light.
    Highlighted by 59 Kindle customers
  • And that’s why I did it. Why I served him. Why I stayed. Because God loves us, but the devil takes an interest.
    Highlighted by 52 Kindle customers
  • “History is a Rorschach test, people,” she said. “What you see when you look at it tells you as much about yourself as it does about the past.”
    Highlighted by 40 Kindle customers
Show all 20 quotes from this book

First Sentence edit see section history

Those who can, do. Those who can't dee-jay.

Glossary edit see section history

  • Momzilla: An overprotective, hyper-aware mother whose interference in her son's life is the impetus for the creation of new words containing the word "mom" which have unpleasant connotations.
  • VietMom: Another name Vijay calls his overprotective mother.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Jennifer Donnelly (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Country: United States
Publication Date: 2010
ISBN: 9780385737630
Page Count: 496

Classification edit see section history

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

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