All great artists take; of themselves, their family, their idols, the world around them. But how much is too much? When does inspiration become theft? Do you need permission to turn your loved ones into characters? These questions are at the heart of YA author Melissa Albert’s clever and engaging adult debut The Children.

Ennis and Guinevere Sharpe grew up in a charming house in the Vermont woods, largely left to their own devices while their one-time actor father and their budding novelist mother both pursued their own interests. As a result, the siblings shared an intense bond, having little contact with other humans outside of their own family and the various artists who would visit their parents.

After struggling to write, their mother suddenly strikes gold and publishes a children’s fantasy novel to great acclaim. That first hit novel begets a second and before long the beloved Ninth City series is born. But the kids at the center of her novel are Ennis and Guin, copied wholesale without their knowledge from their lives. Or at least, copied as well as their somewhat distant mother is able to.

As adults the siblings are no longer speaking. Their parents both perished when their house caught fire, and now Guin functions as the mouthpiece for her mother’s books, handling public appearances and preparing to launch a memoir of her own, while Ennis has become a renowned artist known for paintings and large-scale installations that can have unusual effects on their viewers. When Guin learns that his next piece is soon to open, and is titled “Mother”, she begins trying to reach out to him, stirring up memories she’d tried to repress and hurtling towards the potentially dangerous truth of what happened all those years ago when their lives went up in flames.

Guinevere makes for an interesting lead character. She may be yet another unreliable narrator, but it doesn’t feel as if she is lying to the reader or intentionally blurring the truth, rather that she’s hiding it from herself and sometimes being kept in the dark by others. Much of her struggles feel relatable despite her envious financial situation. Who among us doesn’t yearn for connection while sometimes feeling like it will be forever out of reach? Or struggle to overcome our own personal flaws?

Alternating between her childhood and adult life, we gradually learn how she became the way she is, but it’s the central mysteries of both what caused the deadly inferno that took her parents from her and what her brother is planning in his latest exhibit that keep the reader turning the pages. I admit that I found the beginning a bit slow, but as the story unfolded I found myself more and more eager to return to it.

Albert’s prose helps to draw the reader in, bringing the world of The Children vividly to life in often beautiful detail without ever getting mired in minutiae. The ending is satisfying and strange, and leaves the reader feeling the sort of affinity for the characters that fans of the fictional Ninth City books do within, a sure feat of literary magic that is not easily repeated. With its themes of memory, reality, family, and the cost(s) of art, this leaves an impression. ★★★★