IT TAKES TWO

Imagine the black-clad, proto-Goth twins in Diane Arbus's famous photograph a few years older. Now imagine them as the heroines of a new Y.A. novel that shuffles the teen-dystopia deck with some Narnia-style fantasy. Intrigued? The twins, Charlotte and Sonja,

perform as musicians in “ a tattered, Victorianesque circus that travels through the nightmarish Outskirts, an ash-heap wasteland k patrolled by PG-13 versions of the gangs in A Clockwork Orange. But wait, that's only the first few chapters! The twins are soon spirited off by a mysterious guardian for an adventure that takes them through hidden worlds, full of supernatural creatures and known as the Seven Edens. Will Charlotte and Sonja uncover the secret of their own birth and regain their strange, stolen powers? Designer and illustrator Juman Malouf sets quite a few plates spinning in The Trilogy of Two (Putnam), her first novel. She keeps it all whirling with aplomb and no broken crockery—a bit of a circus performer herself. Plus, her line drawings are exquisite.

BRUCE HANDY