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Pick the Lock

by A. S. King

A family’s secrets, captured on camera

Regular price $17.71 USD
Regular price $29.52 USD Sale price $17.71 USD
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AlbakiReads Editorial

A family’s secrets, captured on camera

Jane Vandermaker-Cook has accepted the strange routines of life in a Victorian mansion with her younger brother and their father. When she gains access to security-camera recordings spanning her lifetime, that familiar world becomes something to investigate. The story brings together family control, absence, and hidden truths through Jane’s effort to understand what has been kept from her. Its deliberately unusual details—including pneumatic tubes and an ever-present aunt—give the family mystery a surreal edge, while the description frames the book as a portrait of survival amid deception.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Teens and young adults interested in fiction about family secrets and deception
  • Readers seeking stories that address controlling family dynamics and survival
  • Readers open to surreal details within a family-centered mystery

Themes

Family secrets and deceptionControl and abuseSurvivalMemory and recorded evidence

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

From the award-winning author of Dig comes a weird and insightful novel about a girl intent on picking the lock of her toxic family's secrets.

"A roller coaster of a book, Pick the Lock is one thrill after another."--NPR

"Updated and recast for a new generation, this is a much-needed, thought-provoking tale of survival and triumph."--BCCB, starred review

Jane Vandermaker-Cook would like her mother back. As Jane's mother tours the world to support the family, Jane lives and goes to school in a Victorian mansion with her younger brother and their mendacious father, who confines Jane's mother to a system of pneumatic tubes whenever she's at home. And then there's weirdly ever-present Aunt Finch, Milorad the gardener, and his rat, Brutus. For Jane, this all seems normal until she gains access to the files for a lifetime of security camera videos--her lifetime.

Pick the Lock is a punk opera, a primal scream, and a portrait of a family buried in lies.
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