Rabbit who is trying to find the right time to come out to his sister and come out of her shadow. There’s Natalie who has to come to terms with her guilt. While the complex whodunit mystery is the main plot that connects the characters, it’s the study of them that makes the book so compelling. This triggers two entirely different responses from them, which leads to two distinct coming-of-age stories. Despite the world seemingly crashing down around them (or the hotel for that matter at least), what’s more devastating is the prospect of the Hatmaker twins not being together as the shadow of college approaches them. The twins’ dynamic drives so much of the emotional heft of the book.

Neither of them, along with their chaperone Natalie Wilson, quite know what the old beast of a hotel has in store for them. Rabbit (Bertram), on the other hand, just wants to figure out a way to come out to his sister.

Fast forward to 1997 when the Hatmaker twins, stars of the school’s chorus and orchestra, are selected to join the Statewide music festival, the pinnacle of high school music in the state, at the Bellweather.Īlice, the more rambunctious and ambitious of the two, is looking forward to cementing her place as a star on the rise. Not only does it leave a permanent scar on her delicate young psyche, it also shoves her head deep into the world of horror movies, which Racculia pulls heavily from. 1982 in the Bellweather hotel in upstate New York to be exact where a gruesome murder-suicide rocks the world of Minnie Graves. However, let me bring it back to the beginning. Her brother on the hand is a much more down-to-Earth teen who simply wants to get through life without embarrassing himself.

She doesn’t hope she will be a star, she knows she’s going to be. For her, the world, the sun, and universe revolve around her. She even keeps a journal that she wants to eventually become her biography when her star has finally faded. Though Bellweather Rhapsody follows six main characters with countless minor characters, the main focus is a set of twins: the Hatmakers. But Racculia balances the genres so deftly with her off-kilter characters that in the end, this odd comedic tragedy becomes something profound in the end. Bellweather Rhapsody is simultaneously a “whodunit” mystery, teenage coming-of-age dramedy, shifting character study, and even more. However, they are more than just reference because they shape the book itself. Bellweather Rhapsody is a coming-of-age drama and whodunit mystery wrapped into a quirky dark comedyĪgatha Christie, The Shining, and Stephen King are all directly referenced in Kate Racculia’s sophomore effort.

Bellweather rhapsody