This Rebel Heart incorporates surprising elements of fabulism into a breathtaking, affecting work about historic change in 1956 Hungary. Katherine Locke (The Girl with the Red Balloon) also includes a swoon-worthy relationship among three young people perched on a "knife's edge of tension."
With two weeks remaining until she and her aunt, her one living relative, escape Communist Budapest, Csilla only has to keep her head down and avoid attracting the attention of the secret police. But then, on the cusp of the ill-fated Hungarian Revolution, Csilla meets two young men who change the course of her life. One, with "moppish hair and long, gangly limbs," has an uncanny ability to show up when he is most needed. The other is a handsome, dark-eyed boy who lost his lover in a government raid. Csilla is drawn into the ill-fated uprising, driven by her rage at the political machine that "disappeared" the majority of the Jewish community during the Holocaust and the violent years that followed.
The Hungarian Revolution may not be a familiar moment in history for many young readers, but the queer characters, gentle three-way romance and passionate socio-political activism in This Rebel Heart are likely to strike a recognizable chord for teens of any era. Locke so smoothly blends magic with historical fiction, it might take a moment to realize that Budapest is actually--not figuratively--colorless and that the Danube does, in fact, have magical powers. As does this book. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor